"Edward Jeffrey Irving Ardizzone, was an English artist and creator of children's books. For Tim All Alone (Oxford, 1956), which he wrote and illustrated, Ardizzone won the inaugural Kate Greenaway Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book illustration by a British subject."
Ardizzone was massively famous for his endearing, juvenile illustrations, sketched in such a way that they denote playfulness, innocence and childlike emotions. He was celebrated as a master of children's illustrations.
The next part shocked me massively, as the artist was known widely for creating this beautiful, humble pieces designed for children's eyes, he then, during the second World War's period, turned his hand to being a war time illustrator.
"In World War II Ardizzone worked as an full-time, official war artist assigned to the War Office by the War Artists' Advisory Committee. He first served with the British Expeditionary Force in France and Belgium before being evacuated back to Britain. In January 1942 he recorded the arrival of American troops in Northern Ireland.An extensive collection of his war pictures, as well as his wartime diaries, can be seen at The Imperial War Museum."
As you can see, his war time work has such a different tone to his previous children's illustrations, which is an incredible feat of skill in my eyes. Ardizzone's war time pieces make use of very mundane and unilluminated colours, to set the sinister tone of war time conditions. His illustrations aren't even in the same child like style as previously, and now hold a very emotive stance which grips the viewer.
