John Burningham: United Kingdom ★ Illustrator

Born in Surrey in 1936, John Burningham received an unusual education in numerous different schools including the alternative educational establishment, Summerhill. A conscientious objector, he filled his military service requirements by serving in an ambulance unit, and went on to work in a series of other community related projects such as school building in Italy, slum clearance, and forestry work. His formal education took place at the Central School of Art in London, where he met his wife, the award-winning children’s illustrator, Helen Oxenbury. With a fifty year history of publication behind him, Burningham’s production is considerable. The vast majority of his works are picture books which he has both written and illustrated, but he has also produced a number of books for adults and illustrated classics by Jules Verne and Ian Fleming.

Burningham’s works are characterized by a respect for children, but rarely at the expense of the adults in their lives. For instance, his two books about Shirley: Come Away From the Water, Shirley and Time to Get Out of the Bath, Shirley use the gutter to separate the mundane world of the adult from the imaginative interior world of the child’s imagination. So whilst Shirley’s parents focus on the prosaic concerns of the coldness of the sea water or bath water on the floor, Shirley imagines herself into a fantasy world where she can fight pirates and find treasure. Her parents are to be pitied for their lack of education rather than sneered at for their inability to empathize with their daughter.

The loving bond between adults and children becomes more poignant as the age gap increases. Granpa depicts a particularly tender illustration of a young girl’s relationship with her grandfather. Narrated through the things the adult and child do (or do not) say to one another, this picture book, like the Shirley books, maximizes the power of absence as a way to communicate without limiting the imagination or forcing a single didactic message. Similarly, the affection between the elderly Mr. Gumpy and the animals and children in his boat or on his outing is far more important than the minor characters’ momentary bad behavior.

Burningham’s illustrative style contrasts sparse, airy sketches in ink with thickly layered, textured paintings. The forms do not aim at realism, but rather at resembling aspects of children’s own paintings. He is particularly adept at capturing the varied moods of his characters through a few deft strokes depicting the facial features.