Michael Foreman
About Author
Born 1938, in Pakefield, a fishing village in Suffolk, England, Michael Foreman grew up during the Second World War, an experience which has had a lasting and creative influence on his work. He studied painting at Lowestoft School of Art (1954-1958) and then, commercial art, for the next two years at St Martins School of Art in London before going on to the Royal College of Art to study graphics between 1960-1963.
While at the RCA, he would illustrate his first book, The General (1961), but at the time, even more significantly, he won a travelling scholarship that allowed him to go to the United States of America. He drew all over America and contributed drawings to many US magazines. He then travelled all over the world as a travel illustrator, made animated films in Denmark, television commercials in France, and he even worked in Chicago for four months in 1966 as an art director for Playboy magazine.
When Foreman did return to England, he began lecturing in a number of London schools of art; St Martins School, The London College of Printing, The Royal College of Art and the Central School of Art; all the while, however, Foreman continued as a freelance illustrator, often at first working for magazines but also, at one point, working for the police as a sketch artist.
Then, in 1967, he resumed writing and illustrating his own picture books; The Perfect Present and The Two Giants. Thereafter, his career as a book illustrator began to grow, and by the 1970s his work was much in demand.
Michael Foreman's numerous books for children have earned him widespread recognition as one of the world's leading illustrators. He has worked on a vast range of children's books, including collaborations with Terry Jones and Michael Morpurgo. He also writes and illustrates his own books, including War Boy and War Game winners of the Kate Greenaway Award and Smarties Book Prize respectively and After the War was Over. He has also illustrated classic stories Peter Pan and Wendy, The Wind in the Willows and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
His watercolours over pencil drawings simultaneously combine the humorous and the slightly menacing, the luminous and the grittily realistic, an odd but appropriate mixture given that Foreman, while well known as a childrens illustrator, has also illustrated many books for adults from Shakespeare and Dickens to the Bible.
He regularly contributes to magazines, particularly the literary magazine Ambit for which he has been Art Editor for over forty years, and he often illustrates travel pieces. Indeed, his almost insatiable appetite for travel Russia, Africa, Japan, Indonesia, the South Pacific, the Arctic Circle, China, Australia and New Zealand, California, Mexico, South America and India inspires not only his illustrations for such non-fiction titles as Michael Moorcocks Letters from Hollywood (1986) but also legends from other cultures such as Madhur Jaffreys Seasons of Splendour (India) (1985), Edna OBriens Tales for the Telling (Ireland) (1986), Kiri te Kanawas Land of the Long White Cloud (New Zealand) (1989), Eric Quayles The Shining Princess (Japan) (1989) and James Riordans Songs my Paddle Sings (native American) (1996).
His travels also provide locations for many of his own childrens books which frequently promote peace and concern for the environment. Dinosaurs and All That Rubbish (1972) is acknowledged as being ground-breaking in its environmental theme and many of his books reflect the stupidity of war.
He has also designed Christmas postage stamps for the British Post Office (1987.)
He has had solo exhibitions of his paintings and illustrations in London, Paris, New York, Japan and Santiago, Chile.
During his career, Michael Foreman has garnered tremendous commercial and critical success. As both an author and a prolific illustrator, he has won many prestigious awards.
Michael lives in London and St. Ives, Cornwall.
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