VIDEO Preview: Jerwood Gallery’s latest exhibitions

Drawn Together: Artist as Selector is a new exhibition marking the 20th anniversary of the Jerwood Drawing Prize. The exhibition focuses on the importance of drawing in the work of leading artists, including Michael Craig-Martin, Cornelia Parker and 1993 Turner Prize winner, Rachel Whiteread, who have all been selectors on the prize’s judging panel over the past twenty years.

The exhibition coincides with an exciting project featuring the much-loved children’s book illustrator, and part time Hastings resident, Sir Quentin Blake.

Quentin Blake: Artists on the Beach will display Blake’s artistic responses to ten of his favourite pieces in the permanent collection, which includes important works by Stanley Spencer, Christopher Wood and LS Lowry. This will give visitors a personal, touching and unique interpretation of such artists’ oeuvre.

Sir Quentin Blake says “I have had the opportunity to draw the boats and the fishing beach which I have been looking at with pleasure for the past thirty years and more. I also find myself looking more closely at the British painters in the Jerwood Collection, many of whom are of the post-war period and so of special interest to me. I was aware of them when I was a young man starting out in painting and drawing. The aim of the exhibition is to get people to come and look not just at my drawings but all the other works in the collection.”

Blake is perhaps best known as the illustrator of books for adults and children by numerous leading authors, most famously, Roald Dahl and David Walliams. Sir Quentin has also illustrated a beautiful new collection guide to accompany the display, titled Artists on the Beach: A Jerwood Gallery Notebook.