Quentin Blake Center for Illustration to Open in London in 2025

The Quentin Blake Center for Illustration, a permanent museum dedicated to the history of illustration, will open in London in 2025. It will be the first and only permanent venue in Britain to trace the evolution of illustration and its key figures, from Sir John Tenniel (Alice in Wonderland) to Axel Scheffler (The Gruffalo) and Sir Quentin Blake himself, who is donating his collection of 40,000 works. The center will be located at the historic New River Head site in Clerkenwell, with a £12 million restoration and development project led by Tim Ronalds Architects. It will feature exhibition galleries, an educational studio, public gardens, a shop, and a café. The museum builds on the experience of the House of Illustration, which opened in 2002 and moved to a space behind King's Cross in 2014. Artistic director Olivia Ahmad told The Guardian that illustration has benefited from a challenge to hierarchies, as boundaries between high and low culture have proven false. She attributes growing interest to the expansion of commercial publishing over the past 50 years and the accessibility of digital culture.