The Bear

Product Information

Over a career which has spanned six decades, Briggs created illustrated books on a wide variety of different themes, from family relationships and grief to social mobility and political satire.

In their aspirations, stoicism, arguments and care for each other, we overhear typical British attitudes to class, sex, education and party politics. The final page shows an already-maturing Ug, painting animals on the cave wall, and asking ‘Things WILL get better … won’t they? Bogeydom’ shows a child-like fascination with muck and murk, slime and smells, but centres upon an affectionate family: Fungus, wife Mildew and son Mold (whose bed is a giant sardine can). They are all written with a sensitivity to the world children inhabit and this is very true of "The Bear".Touring from the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration, the retrospective highlights a selection of Briggs’ most significant works and reveal his expert draughtsmanship, captivating storytelling and the subversive humour throughout some of the most popular and influential children’s books and graphic novels of the 20 th century. The first three important works that Briggs both wrote and illustrated were in comics format rather than the separate text and illustrations typical of children's books; all three were published by Hamish Hamilton.

However, Briggs continued to produce humour for children, in works such as the Unlucky Wally series and The Bear. Born in Wimbledon Park in 1934, he studied at the Wimbledon School of Art and later at the Slade School of Fine Art, and went on to produce a treasure trove of work. Following Briggs’s death, his friend and fellow graphic novelist Posy Simmonds wrote in The Guardian newspaper of how she admired the skill with which Briggs paced his stories: "The way every page-turn is a surprise and his use of different mediums to create atmosphere… He was like a good film director, knowing exactly when to place the close-up or the long shot. I checked it out thinking I couldn't read it to my kiddos -- comic format, dialogue only, talk about poo and pee AND usage of the word stupid?

Then the trio skate on the frozen River Thames (to the refrains of "Somewhere A Star Shines For Everyone") and travel further to the London Docks where a ship cuts through the ice where Tilly is left stranded but is saved by the bear before the moving ship passes. Like The Snowman, the film relies only on music and action to convey the story, although for the American version, Judi Dench narrates the film. The book’s narrative is beautifully paced, the scale of the images expanding to meet the demands of the most lyrical moments when the Snowman and his boy creator take flight over the Sussex cliffs and the South Downs where Briggs lived for the last 60 years of his life, and over the streets of Brighton where Briggs taught at the School of Art from 1961 to 1986. Father Christmas (1973) and its sequel Father Christmas Goes on Holiday (1975); both feature a curmudgeonly Father Christmas who complains incessantly about the "blooming snow". Included in the exhibition are works from Briggs’ pioneering titles as well as drawings, hand-lettered typography and page designs from his earliest commissions to The Puddleman (2004).

The story of a little girl who befriends a mischievous polar bear, this playful, funny and heart-warming tale is one of imagination and growing up. The making of the Snowman film brought a whole new world of collaboration, and audience reach, to Briggs’s work. Born in London in 1934, he was inspired by illustrations in newspapers and Punch magazine and applied to art school at the age of 15.In 2014, Briggs received the Phoenix Picture Book Award from the Children's Literature Association for The Bear (1994). Briggs played an important part in the emergence of graphic novels in Britain, and—through the international embrace of his stories as musicals, ballets and animated films—to feeding his brand into the genre’s global development as a serious mode of visual storytelling in book form. These books have been translated into many languages and adapted into films, stage shows and animations.

When she describes the bear's latest antics to her parents they think he's a figment of her imagination - but is he? For the 50th anniversary of the Medal (1955–2005), a panel named Father Christmas (1973) one of the top-ten winning works, which composed the ballot for a public election of the nation's favourite. The free exhibition showcases the beloved author-illustrator behind some of the UK’s most influential children’s books and graphic novels. The next day, a red haired girl named Tilly is on a day trip to the London Zoo, but accidentally drops her teddy bear into the bear pen.

As a picture book presented in graphic novel format, Briggs's work was ground-breaking when first published and remains cutting edge twenty years later in its creative unity of text and picture.