Picture Book People - 1: Laurence Anholt

This is the first in an occasional series of blogs about their lives by some of the people whose work we here at the Den very much like and admire. We're delighted to welcome super-talented Laurence Anholt, whose work has been published all over the globe. He's written us a fascinating piece about his life story, which is one of great creativity and commitment, very influenced by fine art through the years. He's also sharing with us his surprising and intriguing new direction.

Here he is! Laurence Anholt with hat - Copyright: Julia Mear

I’m generally a cheerful person so I’d like to think I didn’t make too much fuss when I was born on 4th August 1959 in Barnet. In theory that makes me a ‘Norf Lund’ner’ but it’s a bit more complicated than that because my dad was a Dutchman with family roots stretching all the way back to Persia.

My siblings and I spent our early years in Holland and we went to little Dutch schools. Sadly I lost the language but what I retained is that celebrated Dutch liberalism along with a passion for Dutch art, especially van Gogh.

Me in my little Dutch Montessori School aged about 5

Our family returned to the UK in time for part two of my education which became increasingly shambolic. I went to a mixed outward bound school where - so it seemed to me - you could choose whether you went to lessons or not… I chose not! I left school at 16 with almost no qualifications and a general sense of bewilderment.

My father had many good qualities but he was haunted by some devastating wartime experiences. To give some idea, he was amongst the group that liberated Bergen Belsen - not something you get over in a hurry. Perhaps it was understandable that he wasn’t a great mentor; but growing boys need male mentors and when they don’t have them they tend to drift into little gangs of other disaffected boys - I must admit I went a little wild in my teenage years and there are gaps in my CV where even I’m not sure what happened! I travelled; I worked in factories and kitchens and I had many fine adventures along the way. My most bizarre job was working as a bricky on a model village in Southern France. I laid tiny bricks and I think the wages were minuscule too! My main interests had always been English and Art and eventually I stumbled into the Foundation Course at Epsom School of Art where I grew my hair and threw some paint around.

At 19 I was passing through Oxford when I met a beautiful Irish girl, who became my best friend and partner for the next 35 years. Cathy was one of eight siblings; a student nurse who dreamed of becoming an artist. We had heard about the legendary Degree course at Falmouth School of Art, so the two of us assembled portfolios and hitchhiked to Cornwall. This was the late 1970’s and there were only 175 students in that hothouse of creativity. It was an amazing opportunity for self-discovery.

When we qualified we moved to London to take our Masters. Cathy went to the Royal College of Art and I studied Fine Art for three years in the scruffy splendour of the Royal Academy.

'Houses on Haverstock Hill' - an example of the paintings I was doing at the Royal Academy.

We had not a penny between us, but I discovered a knack for carpentry and spent weekends and holidays building kitchens all over London. Around this time, my parents had settled in Dorset and whenever we visited, Cathy and I felt rejuvenated by the woods and the hills. It was the start of a love affair with the Westcountry - the Blue Lias of the Jurassic Coast gets right under your fingernails!

When our first daughter, Claire was born in 1984 I was over the moon. But I wanted to be a different kind of dad and began to think of ways in which I could work from home. That’s when we started looking at those lovely things called children’s books. Perhaps this could be a way of combining my passions - writing, drawing and inspiring kids.

My lovely wife Cathy with our daughter Claire, on Charmouth Beach.

At the time I was working as an art teacher and I entertained my class with stories about maverick characters such as Picasso, Cézanne and Matisse. This led me to write and illustrate ‘Camille and the Sunflowers’, a picture book about the friendship between Van Gogh and Camille Roulin, son of the famously bearded postmaster in Arles.

It was the first in what eventually became the Anholt’s Artists series published by Frances Lincoln in the UK and Barron’s in the U.S. In the last 25 years my series has translated into many languages and sold several million copies around the world.

These books are a first introduction to great artists, seen from the perspective of a real child. They are fascinating to work on and I have met many relatives and acquaintances of the artists, such as Sylvette David, Picasso’s iconic Girl With A Ponytail in the 1950’s who has become a family friend.

Sylvette David by Picasso portrait. Copyright: collection of Sylvette David

I’m currently putting the final touches to the tenth story in the series, about that great feminist icon, Frida Kahlo and another real child. My working title is ‘Frida Kahlo and the Bravest Girl in the World’.

Two watercolour illustrations of Frida Kahlo. Copyright: Laurence Anholt.

In 1987 our beautiful twins, Tom and Maddy were born. Here they are face to face in their pram -

And it was at this time that we discovered our Willy Wonka ticket… in the countryside near Lyme Regis, we stumbled upon a rambling semi-derelict house with acres of tangled jungle, various crumbling outbuildings, a walled swimming pool filled with something resembling vegetable soup, and breathtaking views across the valley to the sea. The place was like a dream or a magical fairy tale (although the mortgage felt real enough!) Old Woodhouse had been long abandoned and it took years to put it straight - I lost count of the evenings I spent on the roof with a hammer, but for sixteen happy years this was our family home.

Making a living as an author or illustrator requires huge tenacity, but slowly our business grew. We’ve always worked without an agent - negotiating directly with publishers and with the wonderful Society of Authors at our side. Being agentless wasn’t a plan, we’ve just never made that connection, although it’s something I would consider for the future. One way or another, we were unbelievably fortunate to be working in the late ’80’s and early ’90’s. That was a Golden Time in children’s publishing, when the UK led the world with an astonishing range of imaginative picture books. It was possible to make a really good living by sitting in your studio, listening to Van Morrison and dreaming up weird and wonderful ideas for children’s stories. It felt like it would go on forever and barely a day went by without another Foreign Rights deal or an exciting offer from a publisher. Alongside my artist series I wrote the Seriously Silly Stories (illustrated by my good friend, Arthur Robins), Chimp and Zee and eventually more than 200 children’s titles, many illustrated by Cathy.

Our books were translated into 30 or more languages and they won several big awards. Here I am with Arthur Robins receiving the Smarties Gold Award with Konnie Huq from Blue Peter and two authors called Julia Donaldson and J.K. Rowling… whatever happened to them!

I took part in book events in Indonesia, Singapore and all around the world. Once Cathy and I travelled to South Korea to launch a full-scale stage musical of my Van Gogh book.

The Korean stage musical of Camille and the sunflowers. Copyright: Laurence Anholt

In those days, editors had the authority to accept a manuscript on the spot, but with the advent of Amazon and e-books, the threat to independent bookshops and the appalling cuts to public libraries, there has been an earthquake in children’s publishing. Now it feels as if publishing houses have erected forcefields around themselves armed by accountants! I know that many editors, authors and illustrators feel very sad about the commercialisation of this lovely industry and it must be horribly difficult to be starting out as an author or illustrator in 2015.

But back to that Golden time… I’ve always liked a little project and in 2005 I spotted a small shop for sale in Lyme Regis. Together with a group of friends, we constructed Chimp and Zee Bookshop by the Sea.

Chimp and Zee, Bookshop by the Sea. Copyright: Laurence Anholt

It was a little wonderland for children with a full-sized copper-leaved oak tree inside and a monkey (called Mumkey) who rode her bicycle endlessly around the window. This was the UK’s first author-owned bookshop and it was even shortlisted for an HSBC Small Business Award. Chimp and Zee was a magical place, but what we liked less were the nuts and bolts of retail and when the UK fell into recession, we sold the shop and set Mumkey free!

I am embarrassingly proud of the kind, funny and courageous adults that our kids have become. Claire graduated from Cambridge and works at a senior level in the UN Secretariat in New York. She does amazing work with climate change, Human Rights, and campaigning against child soldiers. Her lovely French husband, Adrien works in Disaster Relief.

Claire and me

Maddy is an actor, writer and radio presenter who has taken her one-woman show, ‘Maddy’s Many Mouths’ to the Edinburgh Fringe.

Maddy and me. There's a link to Maddy's website below.

Tom is an artist working in Berlin and his gorgeous paintings sell as fast as he can produce them, in galleries in Germany, Denmark, Italy and America.

My son Tom. There's a link to Tom's website below.

The downside of being a home-parent is how much you miss them when they are gone. The solution is usually a little project, and in recent years Cathy and I have restored another neglected gem of a house. This haven of peace and creativity has light-filled studios overlooking the shimmering Axe Estuary near Colyton in Devon. We have wildflower meadows and beehives and we feel incredibly blessed to live in this magical place.

At the bottom of the blog there's a link to an article about our renovation of Sunflower House.

My mother, Joan Pickford, was a wise and wonderful woman who died too young. Joan was a teacher of English Literature, especially Hardy and Wordsworth and although she was a Christian, she was fascinated by Eastern philosophy. It must have influenced me because I became a member of the friendly Buddhist community in this area. If I had more pages I would gleefully expound on the benefits of mindfulness and meditation (such a wonderful tool for writing), but one central concept of Buddhism is that our thoughts become our reality - a person who thinks negative or prejudiced thoughts creates a dark claustrophobic world for themselves; conversely those who train themselves to be positive and open-hearted find the world opening around them. Life is challenging, but life is beautiful too. We are profoundly privileged to walk briefly on this extraordinary blue-green planet, revolving slowly in space.

A couple of years ago, something wonderful happened - I’ve always been an avid reader of fiction and I cherish that hour before sleep when one can explore another country or another mind from the comfort of one’s bed. I’ve always longed to write full-length fiction and I decided to take a year out to write two novels: ‘The Hypnotist’ and ‘Love Letters’. If picture books are hard, a novel is like building a house single-handed! But to my amazement, both books were accepted by the newly merged Penguin Random House. It’s been an incredible privilege to work with the legendary publisher, Annie Eaton and editor, Ruth Knowles - their enthusiasm for my work has been heartwarming. So here I am at 55 launching on a new adventure as a novelist. The Hypnotist is about prejudice and tolerance - In essence I have transposed Dickens’ Great Expectations to the Deep South of America in 1963. My protagonist is a young black orphan making his way against the background of Segregation and the dreaded Ku Klux Klan; (sadly, more topical than ever.) Because I’ve got a funny old brain, the book is a little stranger than a straightforward historical drama - all the events are seen through the very strange eyes of an outsider: an Irish hypnotist, Dr Jack Morrow, who has started work at a new university. There’s a slice of history, a sprinkle of magic realism and a twist of humour. The Hypnotist created a bit of a buzz at Bologna, although US publishers seem nervous of the subject matter! I’m so excited about this project and I’m already thinking about a third novel… I do like a little project, you know! The Hypnotist will be published by Penguin Random House in March 2016.