Charles Keeping

Last updated

Charles Keeping
Charles Keeping portrait.jpg
Charles Keeping
Born(1924-09-22)22 September 1924
Lambeth, London, England
Died16 May 1988(1988-05-16) (aged 63)
London, England
Occupation Illustrator, writer, lithographer
Period1952–1988
Genre Children's literature
Notable works
Notable awards Kate Greenaway Medal
1967, 1981
SpouseRenate Meyer

Charles William James Keeping (22 September 1924 – 16 May 1988) was an English illustrator, children's book author and lithographer. He made the illustrations for Rosemary Sutcliff's historical novels for children, and he created more than twenty picture books. He also illustrated the complete works of Charles Dickens for the Folio Society.

Contents

Keeping won two Kate Greenaway Medals from the Library Association for the best children's book illustration of the year, for his own story Charley, Charlotte and the Golden Canary (1967) and for a new edition (1981) of Alfred Noyes's poem "The Highwayman". [1] [2] For the 50th anniversary of the Medal (1955–2005), a panel named his edition of The Highwayman one of the top ten winning works, which composed the ballot for a public election of the nation's favourite. [3] He also illustrated The God Beneath the Sea , by Leon Garfield and Edward Blishen, which won the 1970 Carnegie Medal for children's literature. For his contribution as a children's illustrator Keeping was a runner-up for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1974. [4] [5]

Charles Keeping (1967) Charley, Charlotte and the Golden Canary KeepingCCGC.jpg
Charles Keeping (1967) Charley, Charlotte and the Golden Canary

His lithographs have been exhibited in London, Italy, Austria and the U.S., including at the 1958 Fifth International Biennial of Contemporary Color Lithography in Cincinnati. He has prints in many collections, including at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Early life

Charles Keeping was born and grew up in Lambeth, London, in a terraced house that housed three generations. He lived in an inner city environment of street markets and working horses that would inform his work his entire life. Charles and his elder sister, Grace, drew and made up stories from an early age, on surplus newsstand placards brought home by their father, Charles Keeping senior, who distributed newspapers to shops and newsstands in the area and boxed under the name Charlie Clarke. [6] : pp. 14–15, 22  He later described his upbringing as "comfortable working class". [7] : p. 36 

He attended the Frank Bryant School for Boys in Kennington, North London, [8] leaving at the minimum age of 14, after which two of his aunts paid for him to take a correspondence course in art. He took a job with the book printing company William Clowes & Sons, and after the outbreak of the Second World War joined Durrants, an engineering company producing munitions. He also spent some time working as a gasman. [6] : pp. 30–31  In 1942, when he turned 18, he joined the Royal Navy as a wireless operator, serving four years. [7] : p. 37 

He returned to civilian life in 1946 with a profound depression and a belief that a head wound he had sustained had disfigured him on the inside as well as (temporarily) on the outside, and would cause him to turn evil like Dr Jekyll becoming Mr Hyde. He received treatment, was institutionalised for a time, and made a full recovery, but perhaps his sympathetic visual treatment of Grendel, the monster from Beowulf , owes something to this period of his life. [6] : 31–36, 46–47 

He applied for a grant to study art at the Regent Street Polytechnic, but was initially turned down, so he read meters for a gas company during the day [7] : p. 37  and took art classes in the evening. [6] : p. 37  He finally got his grant and studied full-time from 1949 to 1952, [7] : p. 38  completing the two-year Intermediate Examination in six months before specialising in illustration and lithography. [6] : p. 43  His teachers included illustrators Stuart Tresilian and Nigel Lambourne, and lithographer Henry Trivick. [7] : p. 38  In 1957 his lithograph Clerks and Ponies was included as one of the 'Young Artists of Promise' in Jack Beddington's book. [9] He also worked as a life model, and on one such occasion in 1949 his demonstration of the functions of the muscles of the back attracted the eye of Renate Meyer, a fellow student who had left Germany with her family in 1933. They married in 1952 [6] : p. 45  and four children. [10]

Career

Early work

Keeping went freelance after graduation, and spent four years drawing a comic strip for the Daily Herald , but did not enjoy the editorial restrictions he had to work under. He also drew cartoons for the Jewish Chronicle , the Middle Eastern Review, and, later, Punch , and his first book commission was a series of cartoon illustrations for a humorous health-promotion book called Why Die of Heart Disease? in 1953. [6] : 51  He also did some work in advertising, and illustrated some educational textbooks. [6] : pp. 52, 54 

Children's books

Rosemary Sutcliff (1976), Blood Feud, book jacket by Keeping SutcliffBloodFeud.jpg
Rosemary Sutcliff (1976), Blood Feud, book jacket by Keeping

In 1956 he began to work through the artist's agent B. L. Kearley Ltd, whose rep Patsy Lambe referred him to Mabel George, editor of children's books at Oxford University Press. George commissioned him to illustrate Rosemary Sutcliff's historical children's novel The Silver Branch . He was unenthused by the ancient Roman subject matter, but experimented with double page spreads and drawings in the margins, and was quickly assigned more books by Sutcliff and others, [6] : 51–55  [11] including Henry Treece. [12] This began a professional relationship with Oxford University Press, for whom he illustrated more books than for any other publisher. [7] : p. 38  Keeping, along with Victor Ambrus, established a new, exuberant style of illustration for children's historical fiction, [7] : p. 40  refusing to shy away from the violence of warfare. [12]

Leon Garfield and Edward Blishen's retelling of Greek myths, The God Beneath the Sea , which Keeping illustrated in 1970, won the Carnegie Medal for that year.

From the later 1960s Keeping, alongside illustrators like Brian Wildsmith and John Burningham, took advantage of advances in printing technology to move from black and white work to adventurous colour techniques. [13] In 1966 he created his first full-colour picture books, Black Dolly and Sean and the Carthorse, both about mistreated working horses. He followed these with Charley, Charlotte and the Golden Canary , a modern fairy tale about two children who grow up in the same street, are separated when one family moves to a new tower block, and are reunited thanks to a pet canary, which depicts the gradual disappearance of the London of Keeping's childhood, a theme he would persistently revisit. The full-colour illustrations are messy and spontaneous, using intense colour, sponge texturing and wax resist, and won Keeping his first Greenaway Medal. [1] Kirkus Reviews concluded a very short review, "Intense colors in striking combinations overwhelm the minimal story." [14]

Keeping created 15 full-colour picture books for Oxford University Press, and several for other publishers. Joseph's Yard (1969) and Through the Window (1970), two of his finest, were also produced as short films for the BBC's "Storyline" programme. Through the Window in particular showcases many of Keeping's techniques and themes. Told through the eyes of a small boy watching events in the street outside from his bedroom window, the illustrations are full of intense evening light and colour, movement, and even, when a horse-drawn dray rattles across a double-page spread, virtual sound. Other picture books include Richard (1973), about a day in the life of a police horse; Wasteground Circus (1975), on the transient but magical effect on two young boys of the circus coming to town; and Willie's Fire Engine (1980), a romantic, dreamlike tale of a young Edinburgh boy's dream of being a firefighter.

In the 1980s Oxford University Press created a new format for Keeping - the black and white picture book for older children. Keeping created four books in this format: The Highwayman (1981), illustrating the 1906 poem by Alfred Noyes in gruesome detail, for which he won his second Greenaway Medal; [2] Beowulf (1982), adapted from the Anglo-Saxon epic by Kevin Crossley-Holland, in which the illustrations subverted the text with a certain sympathy for the monster; The Wedding Ghost (1985), an original story by Leon Garfield; and The Lady of Shalott (1986), illustrating the 1833/1842 Arthurian poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. All were illustrated in evocative line and wash. The influence of Swedish illustrator John Bauer can most clearly be seen on Beowulf.

Keeping continued to produce colour picture books from time to time, including Railway Passage, which was Highly Commended for the 1974 Greenaway Medal; [15] [a] Sammy Streetsinger (1984), about a subway busker's rise to fame as a pop star and subsequent return to happy obscurity; and his final book, Adam and Paradise Island, another story of the changing landscape of London, which was published posthumously in 1989.

Classic fiction

In 1964 Keeping illustrated his first book for the Folio Society, an edition of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights . He disliked the book, finding the characters unconvincing, and so illustrated them in two-colour lithographs in an expressionist style, paying little attention to the faces. He had been contracted for twelve illustrations, but delivered twenty-two, and asked the publisher to choose the twelve best. He followed this with Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front (1966) in a similar style. For the same publisher he illustrated Ghost Stories of M. R. James (1973), Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1976) and Victor Hugo's Les Misérables (2 volumes, 1976) in two-colour lithographs, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Idiot (1971) in line drawings. [6] : pp. 80–82 

Beginning in 1978 with The Pickwick Papers , Keeping took on the mammoth task of illustrating the complete works of Charles Dickens for the Folio Society. His knowledge of the vanishing world of industrial London made him the perfect man for the job. The books were originally to be produced by letterpress printing, meaning the illustrations must be pure line drawings with no tones or washes. When they came to be published more modern printing techniques were used which would have allowed Keeping a full range of tones, but he had started with line drawings, so he used the same technique for the entire series, illustrating two books a year until he completed the task with Martin Chuzzlewit in 1988. [7] : 50–52 

He also worked for another publisher of classic fiction, the Geneva-based Heron Books, for whom he illustrated works by Wilkie Collins, Joseph Conrad, Aldous Huxley, W. Somerset Maugham, Nevil Shute, Robert Louis Stevenson and H. G. Wells. [6] : p. 82 

Other book illustration

In 1975 Keeping produced perhaps his most personal work, Cockney Ding Dong, a lavish 190-page volume collecting and illustrating the traditional songs of the family singalongs of his childhood. A record of some the songs was also released, featuring the voices of members of Keeping's family. Charles himself sings "They're Moving Father's Grave to Build a Sewer!"

Teaching

At the invitation of Henry Trivick, Keeping continued to use the printing presses at Regent Street Polytechnic after his graduation, and from 1956 to 1963 he lectured there one day a week. From 1963 he was a visiting lecturer at Croydon College of Art, initially in illustration, and after 1979 in lithography. His students included Fiona French. [6] : pp. 53, 64 

Personal life

Blue plaque at 16 Church Road, Shortlands, Bromley BR2 0HP Charles Keeping 1924-1988 illustrator lived here.jpg
Blue plaque at 16 Church Road, Shortlands, Bromley BR2 0HP

Charles Keeping died of a brain tumour on 16 May 1988. [16] His widow, Renate, ran the Keeping Gallery, displaying his and her own work for many years. She died in 2014. [10]

Reception

Keeping's work was controversial in some quarters. Some felt his work too flashy, and illustrator Edward Ardizzone is said to have referred to him as "that vulgar artist". [6] : p. 43  Others felt that the frankness and violence of his work, and his taste for the morbid and macabre, were unsuitable for children. [6] : pp. 155–157  His biographer has commented,

His formidable originality within the picture-book convention may not have been altogether apparent to Keeping himself, which is both a strength and a weakness: the strength that he could communicate with unrivalled emotional intensity - but possibly only with one child in twenty; the concomitant weakness is that there was not a lot he could do to broaden this minority appeal and ensure that his books remained in print over longer periods.

— Douglas Martin (1993), Charles Keeping: an illustrator's life

Keeping's former editor Mabel George said of him, "I have always had a strong feeling that Charles was a true genius... it is my belief that he came to maturity very slowly (not in terms of technique, at which he was a master from his earliest days) but from the point of view of his self-confidence as an artist. ... he was all the time growing and developing as a man whose whole life, heart and mind, was dedicated to exploring the human situation in a universe that he found both beautiful and terrifying." [6] : p. 38  His former teacher and fellow illustrator Nigel Lambourne has described him as "one of the few great illustrators we've got. A superb draughtsman, and he had – for all his marvellously brash, outgoing manner – an ability to tear up purposively anything that didn't work." [7] : p. 38 

Awards

The biennial Hans Christian Andersen Award conferred by the International Board on Books for Young People is the highest recognition available to a writer or illustrator of children's books. Keeping was one of three runners-up for the illustration award in 1974 and was the British nominee again in 1978. [4] [5] He won a Golden Apple award at the Biennial of Illustration Bratislava in 1975. [8]

He won several awards for particular books.

Keeping was also a runner-up for at least three Greenaway Medals, which then recognised the year's best children's book illustration by a British subject: [15] [a]

Railway Passage was the first runner up "Highly Commended" for the Medal. Both distinctions were abandoned after 2002. [15] [a]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Today there are usually eight books on the Greenaway shortlist. According to CCSU, some runners up through 2002 were Commended (from 1959) or Highly Commended (from 1974). There were 31 high commendations in 29 years including Keeping alone in 1974. There were 99 commendations of both kinds in 44 years including two for 1969, three 1970, and two 1974.
    • No one has won three Greenaway Medals. Among the fourteen illustrators with two Medals, Keeping is one of seven with one book named to the Anniversary Top Ten (1955–2005); one of seven with at least one Highly Commended runner up (1974–2002); one of six with at least three commendations (1959–2002).

Related Research Articles

The Carnegie Medal for Writing, established in 1936 as the Carnegie Medal, is an annual British literary award for English-language books for children or young adults. It is conferred upon the author by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), who in 2016 called it "the UK's oldest and most prestigious book award for children's writing".

Sir Quentin Saxby Blake, is an English cartoonist, caricaturist, illustrator and children's writer. He has illustrated over 300 books, including 18 written by Roald Dahl, which are among his most popular works. For his lasting contribution as a children's illustrator he won the biennial international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2002, the highest recognition available to creators of children's books. From 1999 to 2001, he was the inaugural British Children's Laureate. He is a patron of the Association of Illustrators.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raymond Briggs</span> English illustrator (1934–2022)

Raymond Redvers Briggs was an English illustrator, cartoonist, graphic novelist and author. Achieving critical and popular success among adults and children, he is best known in Britain for his 1978 story The Snowman, a book without words whose cartoon adaptation is televised and whose musical adaptation is staged every Christmas.

The Carnegie Medal for Illustration is a British award that annually recognises "distinguished illustration in a book for children". It is conferred upon the illustrator by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) which inherited it from the Library Association.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Almond</span> British childrens writer (born 1951)

David Almond is a British author who has written many novels for children and young adults from 1998, each one receiving critical acclaim.

Helen Sonia Cooper is a British illustrator and an author of children's literature. She grew up in Cumbria, where she practiced literature and piano playing. She currently lives in Oxford.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Riddell</span> South African-born English illustrator (born 1962)

Chris Riddell is a South African-born English illustrator and occasional writer of children's books and a political cartoonist for the Observer. He has won three Kate Greenaway Medals – the British librarians' annual award for the best-illustrated children's book, and two of his works were commended runners-up, a distinction dropped after 2002.

Michael Foreman is a British author and illustrator, one of the best-known and most prolific creators of children's books. He won the 1982 and 1989 Kate Greenaway Medals for British children's book illustration and he was a runner-up five times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lauren Child</span> English author and illustrator (born 1965)

Lauren Margot Peachy Child is an English children's author and illustrator. She is best known for the Charlie and Lola picture book series. Her influences include E. H. Shepard, Quentin Blake, Carl Larsson, and Ludwig Bemelmans.

Edward Blishen was an English author and broadcaster. He may be known best for the first of two children's novels based on Greek mythology, written with Leon Garfield, illustrated by Charles Keeping, and published by Longman in 1970. For The God Beneath the Sea Blishen and Garfield won the 1970 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shirley Hughes</span> English illustrator and author (1927–2022)

Winifred Shirley Hughes was an English author and illustrator. She wrote more than fifty books, which have sold more than 11.5 million copies, and illustrated more than two hundred.

Jan Michał Pieńkowski was a Polish-born British author of children's books—as illustrator, as writer, and as designer of movable books. He is best known for illustrating the Meg and Mog picture book series. He also did stage design for the theatre. For his contribution as a children's illustrator he was UK nominee in 1982 and again in 2008 for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest recognition available to creators of children's books.

<i>The God Beneath the Sea</i> 1970 novel by Leon Garfield

The God Beneath the Sea is a children's novel based on Greek mythology, written by Leon Garfield and Edward Blishen, illustrated by Charles Keeping, and published by Longman in 1970. It was awarded the annual Carnegie Medal and commended for the companion Greenaway Medal (Keeping) by the British Library Association. Pantheon Books published a U.S. edition with illustrations by Zevi Blum in 1971.

Errol John Le Cain was a British animator and children's book illustrator. In 1984 he won the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal for "distinguished illustration in a book for children" for Hiawatha's Childhood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony Browne (author)</span> British writer and illustrator (born 1946)

Anthony Edward Tudor Browne is a British writer and illustrator of children's books, primarily picture books. Browne has written or illustrated over fifty books, and received the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2000. From 2009 to 2011 he was Children's Laureate.

John Burningham was an English author and illustrator of children's books, especially picture books for young children. He lived in north London with his wife Helen Oxenbury, another illustrator. His last published work was a husband-and-wife collaboration, There's Going to Be a New Baby, written by John and illustrated by Helen for "ages 2+".

Helen Gillian Oxenbury is an English illustrator and writer of children's picture books. She lives in North London. She has twice won the annual Kate Greenaway Medal, the British librarians' award for illustration and been runner-up four times. For the 50th anniversary of that Medal (1955–2005) her 1999 illustrated edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was named one of the top ten winning works.

Emily Gravett is an English author and illustrator of children's picture books. For her debut book Wolves published in 2005 and Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears published three years later, she won the annual Kate Greenaway Medal recognising the year's best-illustrated British children's book.

Brian Lawrence Wildsmith was a British painter and children's book illustrator. He won the 1962 Kate Greenaway Medal for British children's book illustration, for the wordless alphabet book ABC. In all his books, the illustrations are always as important as the text.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jon Klassen</span> Canadian writer and illustrator (born 1981)

Jon Klassen is a Canadian writer and illustrator of children's books and an animator. He won both the American Caldecott Medal and the British Kate Greenaway Medal for children's book illustration, recognizing the 2012 picture book This Is Not My Hat, which he also wrote. He is the first person to win both awards for the same work.

References

  1. 1 2 3 (Greenaway Winner 1967). Living Archive: Celebrating the Carnegie and Greenaway Winners. CILIP. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
  2. 1 2 3 (Greenaway Winner 1981) Archived 7 January 2013 at the Wayback Machine . Living Archive: Celebrating the Carnegie and Greenaway Winners. CILIP. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
  3. ↑ "70 Years Celebration: Anniversary Top Tens" Archived 27 October 2016 at the Wayback Machine . The CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Children's Book Awards. CILIP. Retrieved 2012-06-30.
  4. 1 2 "Hans Christian Andersen Awards". International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY). Retrieved 2013-07-28.
  5. 1 2 "Candidates for the Hans Christian Andersen Awards 1956–2002". The Hans Christian Andersen Awards, 1956–2002. IBBY. Gyldendal. 2002. Pages 110–18. Hosted by Austrian Literature Online (literature.at). Retrieved 2013-07-28.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Douglas Martin, Charles Keeping: An Illustrator's Life, Julia MacRae Books, 1993.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Douglas Martin, "Charles Keeping"; in Douglas Martin, The Telling Line: Essays On Fifteen Contemporary Book Illustrators (Julia MacRae Books, 1989), pp. 36–59.
  8. 1 2 Brigid Peppin & Lucy Micklethwait, Dictionary of British Book Illustrators: The Twentieth Century, John Murray, 1983, pp. 168–69.
  9. ↑ Beddington, Jack (1957). Young Artists of Promise. The Studio. pp. 55, 124.
  10. 1 2 Rolli Murray, Renate Keeping obituary, The Guardian, 27 April 2014
  11. ↑ William Roger Louis, The History of Oxford University Press Vol III, Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 481.
  12. 1 2 Douglas Martin, "Celebrating Keeping", Books for Keeps No. 86, May 1994.
  13. ↑ Michele Anstey and Geoff Bull, "The picture book: modern and postmodern", in Peter Hunt (ed.), International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature, Routledge, 2004, p. 332.
  14. ↑ "CHARLEY, CHARLOTTE AND THE GOLDEN CANARY by Charles Keeping". Kirkus Reviews 15 February 1968. Retrieved 2012-12-02.
  15. 1 2 3 "Kate Greenaway Medal" Archived 16 September 2014 at the Wayback Machine . 2007(?). Curriculum Lab. Elihu Burritt Library. Central Connecticut State University (CCSU). Retrieved 2012-06-25.
  16. ↑ Douglas Martin (1993). Charles Keeping: An Illustrator's Life. Julia MacRae Books. p. 202. ISBN   978-1-85681-062-3.
  17. ↑ "Kurt Maschler Awards". Book Awards. bizland.com. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
  18. ↑ (Carnegie Winner 1970) Archived 22 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine . Living Archive: Celebrating the Carnegie and Greenaway Winners. CILIP. Retrieved 2012-07-16.

Further reading

Works by Keeping
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.