Association of Illustrators Patron and all round illustration superstar, Quentin Blake, has been honoured with a knighhood in the New Year’s Honours list for 2013. We’d like to offer our congratulations to Quentin as a tireless supporter of illustration, and of the AOI in particular.

Quentin was honoured for ‘services to illustration’, recognising a lifetime’s dedication to the artform, and his support for the House of Illustration, a permanent museum and gallery for which he has pledged his entire archive, which is due to open in the Kings Cross regeneration area of London in 2014.

Blake told the press, “The funny thing is that my books are published a lot in France and Germany and I get a lot of letters from people there who think I have got it already, so I suppose this kind of regularises it. I haven’t quite got used to it yet, but I’m very pleased about it. I’ve already had an OBE and a CBE. I think of it as quite a nice 80th birthday present. But I think it is even more valuable to me because it is for things that aren’t finished – it relates to projects that are still ongoing.”

Sir Quentin is shown here opening the AOI Images 32 Awards evening.

Photographs by pbkphotography