Anthony Browne is one of the UK’s best-loved picture book authors and has written and illustrated over 30 children’s books.
His books, which include Gorilla, Zoo and Willy the Wimp have been widely acclaimed, and in 2000 he was awarded the prestigious international Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration.
Anthony Browne was one of the judges for the 2011 Big Picture Best New Illustrators award.
Monkeys and gorillas appear frequently in your work. Why do you identify with them so strongly?
There are many answers to that question but I suppose the main reason is because they are so much like us. To look into a gorilla’s eyes is very much like looking into the eyes of a human being. Sometimes it feels as though there is a person inside the gorilla looking out at us.
Many of your illustrations reference the work of famous artists, from Da Vinci to Dali, but which picture books and illustrators have inspired you the most?
The two illustrators who have inspired me most are Maurice Sendak with Where the Wild Things Are, and Chris Van Allsburg with The Mysteries of Harris Burdick.
Your books are multi-layered and have both child and adult appeal; did you consciously decide to create books with such a wide audience in mind?
Not really, I wanted to put as many layers in my books as possible so that they could be appreciated at different levels at different stages of development. I like the idea of the readers seeing more each time they read them.
I do think however, it's quite a good idea to interest the adult who may be reading to the child, a bored adult communicates that boredom to the child.
You were once illustrator-in-residence at Tate Britain. What did you learn about the way children respond to pictures?
The main thing I learned was how visually literate children can be and how capable they are at interpreting pictures. I also found out how much fun they could have discovering meanings and stories in paintings.
Why do you think picture books are important?
Seeing comes before words, and I believe it is just as important to develop a child’s visual literacy alongside verbal literacy. Too often they are encouraged to think that maturing and becoming educated is a matter of leaving pictures behind and going into the world of words (or ‘proper’ books as I’ve heard them called).
Which emerging illustrators do you admire at the moment and why?
It’s exciting to see so many good new illustrators emerging in this country, and what I’m always most impressed with is the development of a personal point of view of the world shown through the pictures and the words.
Find out about the Best New Illustrators that Anthony helped to select.
