IN DEPTH Illustrator of the Fair
Illustrator of the Fair David McKee
McKee reflects on three decades of Elmer as the iconic elephant turns global brand
Te illustrator who attended art school merely to avoid getting a job, and whose inimitable patchwork creation came about by conflating his Paul Klee tendencies with his love of elephants, will be celebrated by London Book Fair at Olympia
Charlotte Eyre @charlotteleyre
I
t is shaping up to be a big year for David McKee. The 84-year-old picture book legend is Illustrator of the Fair at this year’s London Book Fair; his publisher, Andersen Press, is celebrating 30 years of publishing Elmer the Elephant; and Newcastle museum Seven Stories is running an exhibition dedicated to his work. “I don’t know why they chose me to be Illustrator of the
Text by Tom Tivnan
When I started I was lucky... parents hadn’t seen many picture books apart from those by John Burningham and Michael Bond
Fair... perhaps Klaus [Flugge, founder of and publisher at Andersen Press] paid them,” he jokes, underplaying the fact that over the years he has created many of the UK’s most beloved picture books, not only those starring Elmer the Elephant but also Not Now, Bernard, Two Monsters, Two Can Toucan and the Mr Benn series, sold millions of titles along the way, and also set up a successful children’s TV production company, King Rollo Films. The accolade is “amazing”, if unexpected—“I didn’t know there was such a thing”, he says—and McKee will discuss his career at an in-conversation event with Ren Renwick, c.e.o. of the Association of Illustrators today (Tuesday 12th March, 1.15 p.m.), as part of the fair’s Illustrate Your Point programme. Part of the reason LBF chose McKee this year is surely the 30th anniversary of Andersen releasing Elmer, which, according to the publisher, has sold more than 10 million copies around the world. Elmer was in fact first published by Dobson Books in 1968, but aſter founder Dennis Dobson died and the book went out of print, Flugge decided to bring the patchwork elephant back to life in 1989, and the series took off. The inspiration behind Elmer is oſten
cited as being a racist incident McKee’s daughter suffered as a child, but the illustra- tor says that isn’t strictly true. The family did experience racism when his children were young (McKee’s late wife was Anglo- Indian) but Elmer was also the combination of two things he liked to draw: elephants and squares. “At the time I liked drawing elephants. I was a painter as well and my paintings were squared up, a bit Paul Klee- ish, and one day I mixed the two,” he says. “One day I put the squares on the elephant, then I looked at him and the name Elmer,
Elmer the Elephant, the usual alliteration, came to me.” 28 12th March 2019
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