in all the things she liked, and she liked all the things small children do, such as going out in the dark. And she liked tigers because we had seen them at the zoo, of course.”
JUDITH KERR
14 JUNE 1923–22 MAY 2019 J
SHE WILL LIVE ON AS LONG AS PEOPLE ENJOY HER WORDS AND PICTURES, AND THAT’S NEVER GOING TO END, IS IT?
Philip Ardagh children’s author
udith Kerr was named the Illustrator of the Year at the British Book Awards in May, but the 95-year-old’s award was given to her publisher, as the German-born artist was unable to attend the
ceremony. Three weeks later, news of Kerr’s death shook the book trade, with tributes pouring in for the beloved illustrator. The success of her most famous
creation, The Tiger Who Came to Tea, surprised Kerr, who came up with the story for her daughter Tacy, aged two at the time. “I used to make up stories for her, partly because picture books were so awful,” Kerr told The Bookseller in 2015.“I put
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ROAR MATERIALS Not having any real idea about how to create a picture book, Kerr just “looked at some books in the shops”. John Burningham’s Humbert, about a horse that pulled the Lord Mayor’s carriage, caught her eye, so she sat down and thought, “I’ll just give it a go.” It was the first and only time in her career she put the words down before the illustrations, and when she illustrated the text she drew things she knew: her daughter, her kitchen, Barnes High Street. The father in the book was based partly on her husband (the late writer Nigel Kneale) and partly on an actor friend who would sit for her as a model. “As a result there are two fathers in the book... but no one has ever complained,” she joked. Kerr was born in
Germany in 1923 and her family came to the UK in 1936 because her father, Alfred, had been openly critical of the Nazi party. She went to art school but had no real desire to be an illustrator or author—“I wanted to be a painter, like everybody at art school”—and actually
failed the module in illustration. During her career Kerr won an array of major prizes and, after Tiger’s sales surpassed a million copies in 2012, she was awarded an OBE.
Text Charlotte Eyre
JUDITH KERR AND HER FAMOUS TIGER MEET A YOUNG FAN
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