© Laura Carlin
The House of Illustration is the world’s first dedicated home for the world’s most accessible artform. From advertising to animation, picture books to political cartoons, and medical drawing to fashion design, we champion illustration, explore its riches and celebrate the way it touches our lives.
Our vision
Illustration is all around us – on billboards and postage stamps, in computer games and illuminated manuscripts. It can be difficult to define; but complements so many disciplines – from architecture to medicine, from travel to fashion.
We put the world’s most varied artform centre stage and give it the attention it deserves.
We are a world-first creative hub for emerging and established artists working in every aspect of illustration, where skills are developed, work is promoted and the imagination is ignited.
“I owe as much to the great illustrators as I do to the writers whose work they illuminated. More than anything else I remember the look of their work on the paper, the sheer pleasure my young – and old – eyes have found in the shape of a line, the delicacy of hatching, the impression of weight or texture or movement, or mischief, or sorrow, or courage, or joy conjured up by the simple magic of blacklines on white paper. How do they do it? I don’t know. Geniuses, all of them. Long live the illustrators! Hoorah for their work!”
Philip Pullman