Charles Keeping

• Illustration — 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, including Henry Treece. This began a professional relationship with Oxford University Press, for whom he illustrated more books than for any other publisher. Keeping, along with Victor Ambrus, established a new, exuberant style of illustration for children's historical fiction, refusing to shy away from the violence of warfare. 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. 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. Kirkus Reviews concluded a very short review, "Intense colors in striking combinations overwhelm the minimal story." 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; 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; 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.

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!"

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.

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". Others felt that the frankness and violence of his work, and his taste for the morbid and macabre, were unsuitable for children. His biographer has commented, 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." 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."

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. He won a Golden Apple award at the Biennial of Illustration Bratislava in 1975. He won several awards for particular books. • 1967 Kate Greenaway Medal, Charley, Charlotte and the Golden Canary, written by Keeping • 1972 Francis Williams Award for Illustration, Tinker Tailor: Folk Song Tales (New York: World), tunes "arranged for voice and piano by K. Neil Slater" (WorldCat) • 1977 Francis Williams Award for Illustration, The Wildman, written by Kevin Crossley-Holland • 1981 Kate Greenaway Medal, The Highwayman, written by Alfred Noyes (1906) • 1987 Kurt Maschler Award, or the Emil, Jack the Treacle Eater (Macmillan), with writer Charles Causley for integrated of writing and illustration in a British children's book • 1988 W H Smith Illustration Award, Charles Keeping's Classic Tales of the Macabre, written by various authors 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: • 1969, Joseph's Yard, written by himself • 1970, The God Beneath the Sea, written by Edward Blishen and Leon Garfield (who jointly won the annual British Carnegie Medal) • 1974, Railway Passage (Oxford), written by himself Railway Passage was the first runner up "Highly Commended" for the Medal. Both distinctions were abandoned after 2002.