It was a great privilege for the Lord Mayors’ Show that Quentin Blake
agreed to produce the image for the 2020 Show. He follows in a series
of artists including Sir Peter Blake, Chris Orr, Brian Grimwood, his
friend Linda Kitson and Nicholas Hely-Hutchinson who have been
commissioned in turn since the 800th anniversary in 2015.

Cancelled only twice in over 800 years, 2020 turned out to be a
“No-Show” due to the constraints imposed on us all by COVID-19. But
with typical humour and irreverence, Quentin took his evocative drawing
of key workers in their struggle against the virus and added "The Lord
Mayor’s No Show 2020" in his inimitable hand, to create this very
special memento of a strange year in which the Show had to be cancelled.

Quentin Blake was born in the suburbs of London in 1932 and has drawn ever since he can remember.

He went to Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School, followed by
National Service. Then he studied English at Downing College,
Cambridge, going on to do a postgraduate teaching diploma at the
University of London, followed by life-classes at Chelsea Art School.

He has always made his living as an illustrator, as well as teaching
for over twenty years at the Royal College of Art, where he was head of
the Illustration department from 1978 to 1986. His first drawings were
published in Punch while he was 16 and still at school. He continued to draw for Punch, The Spectator and other magazines over many years, while at the same time entering the world of children's books with A Drink of Water by John Yeoman in 1960.

He is known for his collaboration with writers such as Russell Hoban,
Joan Aiken, Michael Rosen, John Yeoman and, most famously, Roald Dahl.
He has also illustrated classic books, including A Christmas Carol and Candide and created much-loved characters of his own, including Mister Magnolia and Mrs Armitage.

Since the 1990s Quentin Blake has had an additional career as
exhibition curator, curating shows in, among other places, the National
Gallery, the British Library and the Musée du Petit Palais in Paris. In
the last few years he has begun to make larger-scale work for hospitals
and healthcare settings in the UK and France where his work can be seen
in wards and public spaces. Most recently he has completed a scheme for
the whole of a new maternity hospital in Angers.

His books have won numerous prizes and awards, including the
Whitbread Award, the Kate Greenaway Medal, the Emil/Kurt Maschler Award
and the international Bologna Ragazzi Prize. He won the 2002 Hans
Christian Andersen Award for Illustration, the highest international
recognition given to creators of children's books. In 2004 Quentin Blake
was awarded the 'Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres' by the French
Government for services to literature and in 2007 he was made Officier
in the same order. In 2014 he was admitted to the Legion d'Honneur, an
honour accorded to few people who are not French nationals. In 1999 he
was appointed the first ever Children's Laureate, a post designed to
raise the profile of children's literature. His book Laureate's Progress
(2002) recorded many of his activities and the illustrations he
produced during his two-year tenure. Quentin Blake was created CBE in
2005, is an RDI and has numerous honorary degrees from universities
throughout the UK. He received a knighthood for 'services to
illustration' in the New Year's Honours for 2013, and became an Honorary
Freeman of the City of London in 2015.