Robert Ingpen

Robert Ingpen studied at The Geelong College and RMIT University. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is graphics, book illustration and Australian literature. Works named in the authority record are Encyclopedia of Things That Never Were. Work by Robert Ingpen is recorded in the collections of National Gallery of Victoria and Melbourne Cricket Club. Distinctions recorded are Dromkeen Medal, Hans Christian Andersen Award, Member of the Order of Australia and Ditmar Award.

• Name — Robert Ingpen • Born — 13 October 1936 • Birthplace — Geelong, Victoria, Australia • Occupation — Graphic designer, illustrator, writer • Period — 1958–present; children's books from mid-1970s • Genre — Children's classics, folk tales, picture books • Subject — Science illustration; Australia environment, history • Awards — Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration

Ingpen was born in Geelong, Victoria, and attended Geelong College to 1957. He graduated with a Diploma of Graphic Art from RMIT in 1958, where he studied with Harold Freedman.

In 1958, Ingpen was appointed by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) as an artist to interpret and communicate the results of scientific research. From 1968 Ingpen worked as a freelance designer, illustrator and author. He was also a member of a United Nations team in Mexico and Peru until 1975, where he designed pamphlets on fisheries and was involved in "a number of Australian conservation and environmental projects". He left the CSIRO to work full-time as a freelance writer in 1968. Ingpen's interest in conservation issues continued, and he was one of the founding members of the Australian Conservation Foundation.

• Illustration — Flag of the Northern Territory as designed by Ingpen Ingpen has written or illustrated more than 100 published books. These include children's picture books and fictional stories for all ages. His nonfiction books mostly relate to history, conservation, environment and health issues. His most frequent collaborator has been the author and editor Michael Page. Ingpen has designed many postage stamps for Australia, as well as the flag and coat of arms for the Northern Territory. Ingpen has created a number of public murals in Geelong, Melbourne, Canberra and the Gold Coast in Queensland. He also has designed bronze statues, which include the Poppykettle Fountain in the Geelong Steam Packet Gardens (currently dry due to drought restrictions) and the bronze doors to the Melbourne Cricket Club. His most recent work is the design and working drawings for a tapestry, which was woven by The Victorian Tapestry Workshop, to celebrate the 150 years of the Melbourne Cricket Ground. In 1982 Ingpen designed the Dromkeen Medal for the Governors of the Courtney Oldmeadow Children's Literature Foundation. The Dromkeen is awarded annually to Australians in recognition of contributions to children's literature, and Ingpen received it himself in 1989 for his own work in the field. Ingpen was illustrator for the centenary editions of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan and Wendy and Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows for which he bases characterisations on contemporary figures and personalities. In 2007 Ingpen illustrated a picture book by Liz Lofthouse called Ziba Came on a Boat, which was nominated for many Australian awards including the Australian Children's Book Council Awards and the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards.

In 1999 Ingpen had a major retrospective exhibition in Taipei, which travelled to other regions of Taiwan for a two-month period. Also in 1999 an exhibition of the original artworks and book launch for Around the World in 80 Days was held in London. In 2002 Ingpen had a solo exhibition in Bologna, Italy, and works from Shakespeare were exhibited in New York City. In 2002 Ingpen's work featured in the inaugural exhibition at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Massachusetts, and he donated to the Museum the illustrations for Charise Neugebauer's Halloween Circus at the Graveyard Lawn (2003).

ppktl • Poppykettle series • Australian Gnomes (Adelaide: Rigby Opal Books, 1979) • The Voyage of the Poppykettle (Rigby, 1980) • The Unchosen Land (1981) • Beginnings and Endings with Lifetimes in Between (1983) by Ingpen and Bryan Mellonie; North American title, evidently Lifetimes: a Beautiful Way to Explain Death to Children, • The Great Bullocky Race (1984) by Ingpen and Michael Fitzgerald Page • The Idle Bear (1986) • Out of This World: the Complete Book of Fantasy (1986) by Ingpen and Michael Fitzgerald Page • The Age of Acorns (1988) • The Dreamkeeper: a Letter from Robert Ingpen to His Granddaughter Alice Elizabeth (1995) • The Afternoon Treehouse (1996) • Folk Tales & Fables of Asia & Australia (1992) by Ingpen and Barbara Hayes • Once Upon a Place (1999) • A Bear Tale (2000) • The Rare Bear (2004)

• In Pastures Green: the Story of the Presbyterian Church, Sale, Gippsland, Victoria (c1954) • Pioneers of Wool (1972) • Pioneer Settlement in Australia (1973) • Robe: a Portrait of the Past (1975) • Don Dunstan's Cookbook (1976) • Paradise and Beyond: Tasmania (1978) by Ingpen and N.C.K. Evers • Australian Gnomes (1979) • Marking Time: Australia's Abandoned Buildings (1979) • Australia's Heritage Watch: an Overview of Australian Conservation (1981) • Aussie Battlers (1982) by Ingpen and Michael Fitzgerald Page • Australian Inventions and Innovations (1982) by Ingpen, Sally Carruthers, and others • Colonial South Australia: Its People and Buildings (1985) by Michael Fitzgerald Page • Worldly Dogs (1986) by Ingpen and Michael Fitzgerald Page • The Making of Australians (1987) by Ingpen and Michael Fitzgerald Page • Conservation (1987) by Ingpen and Margaret Dunkle • Encyclopedia of Things That Never Were: Creatures, Places, and People (1987) by Ingpen and Michael Fitzgerald Page • A Celebration of Customs & Rituals of the World (1994) by Ingpen and Philip Wilkinson • Encyclopedia of Mysterious Places: the Life and Legends of Ancient Sites Around the World (1990) by Ingpen and Wilkinson • In the Wake of the Mary Celeste (c. 2004) by Ingpen and Gary Crew • Imprints of Generations (2006) • The Boy from Bowral: the Story of Sir Donald Bradman (2007) • Looking for Clancy (National Library of Australia, 2013), featuring "Clancy of the Overflow" by A.B. Paterson [1889]

Surprise and enterprise: fifty years of science for Australia / text by Andrew McKay; illustrations and design by Robert Ingpen; editors, Frederick White and David Kimpton. Recorded as having received Dromkeen Medal, Hans Christian Andersen Award and Member of the Order of Australia.