LONDON: Christie’s Classic Week presents Quentin Blake: New Drawings 2021, open for bidding from 30 November to 14 December. The online auction offers the latest collections of illustrations by Sir Quentin Blake, sold to benefit House of Illustration, Greenpeace and Downing College, Cambridge. Estimates range from £200 to £2,500 and a selection of drawings will be on view and open to the public at Christie’s King Street from 11 to 14 December.

Sir Quentin Blake commented: “My last auction at Christie’s was made up of alternative versions of drawings that had been commissioned from me. There are one or two such items in the present collection, but in most respects it could hardly be more different. The great majority of these came into being of their own urgency, although if you are familiar with my work you will recognise certain familiar themes, and will not be surprised to come across an elderly gentleman and a wading bird taking a stroll through a pond together.”

The auction will include works sold to benefit House of Illustration and the future Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration. Located at the New River Head site in Clerkenwell, the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration is due to open in 2023 following an extensive £12m restoration of a complex of 18^th and 19^th century industrial buildings, which will be transformed into galleries, studios and gardens. The centre will also house the 40,000 work archive of the organisation’s founder, Sir Quentin Blake, with a dedicated permanent gallery.

Further works will benefit Greenpeace campaigns to protect the natural world from the destructive fishing, deforestation and the climate crisis. Downing College, Cambridge marked the 40^th anniversary of the admission of women to the College in 2020, acknowledging and celebrating Downing’s women past, present and future. In his exclusive series of drawings, 40 Women for Downing, Quentin Blake presents a portrait of an imagined student to mark each year of 40 years of women at Downing. The funds raised from the auction will be used to support exhibitions at the Heong Gallery at Downing College, which is open to students and members of the public and is funded entirely by donations.