BATH.- The Holburne Museum of Art presents the exhibit Frabjous Beasts through 10 September. Quentin Blake has selected twenty beastly works by some of the country’s finest living illustrators. Sara Fanelli presents us with some wonderfully monstrous images from Greek mythology, Emma Chichester Clark provides strange creatures to accompany Roald Dahl’s songs and verse, Axel Scheffler’s Gruffalo makes an appearance as does Raymond Briggs’ Fungus the Bogeyman. Amongst the range of styles - from collage to fine brush strokes and joyful splodges - there is something to please all ages including a group of frabjous beasts from Quentin Blake created for this exhibition.

Quentin Blake was born in 1932 and has drawn ever since he can remember. His first drawing was published in Punch when he was just 16. He went to Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School before reading English at Downing College, Cambridge. After National Service he did a postgraduate teaching diploma at the University of London, followed by life-classes at Chelsea Art School.

He has always made his living as an illustrator, as well as teaching for over twenty years at the Royal College of Art, where he was head of the Illustration department from 1978 to 1986. His first drawings were published in Punch while he was still at school. He continued to draw for Punch, The Spectator and other magazines over many years, while at the same time entering the world of children's books with A Drink of Water by John Yeoman in 1960.

He is known for his collaboration with writers such as Russell Hoban, Joan Aiken, Michael Rosen, John Yeoman and, most famously, Roald Dahl. He has also illustrated classic children's books, and created much-loved characters of his own, including Mister Magnolia and Mrs Armitage.

His books have won numerous prizes and awards, including the Whitbread Award, the Kate Greenaway Medal, the Emil/Kurt Maschler Award and the international Bologna Ragazzi Prize. Most recently he won the 2002 Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration, the highest international recognition given to creators of children's books.

At the age of 70, he is now recognised, according to The Guardian, as 'a national institution'. In 1999 he was appointed the first ever Children's Laureate, a post designed to raise the profile of children's literature. In 2002 Laureate's Progress recorded many of his activities and the illustrations he produced during his two-year tenure.

'Blake is beyond brilliant. He's anarchic, moral, infinitely subversive, sometimes vicious, socially acute, sparse when he has to be, exuberantly lavish in the detail when he feels like it. He can tell wonderful stories without a single word, but his partnership with Roald Dahl was made in heaven. Or somewhere. The diabolic ingenuity of Dahl came into its own only when he wrote for children. In conjunction with Blake, there was a kind of alchemy. I've never met a child who didn't love Quentin Blake.' Melanie McDonagh, Daily Telegraph.