Airborne over Sherborne - Quentin Blake

17.01.2026 - 12.04.2026 | First Floor Georgian Room Galleries

Some drawings don’t just sit on the page — they lift.
Quentin Blake’s line has always carried a sense of flight: marks that leap, bodies caught mid-air, stories that seem to rise off the paper. Airborne over Sherborne invites you into that feeling of freedom — joyful, light-footed, and wonderfully alive.

Created as a new series of drawings in 2025, these works celebrate what happens when imaginations leave the ground. Some figures are airborne by nature — birds in motion, wings beating. Others take to the air through sheer invention: contraptions, improbable machines, impossible ideas that nonetheless feel completely believable in Blake’s world. There is humour here, and mischief, but also something more tender: the exhilaration of movement, the sweetness of suspension, the moment just before landing.

Set within The Sherborne’s luminous Georgian interiors, the exhibition becomes a conversation between contemporary mark-making and a house layered with history. The rooms bring their own sense of theatre — light, proportion, and the quiet grandeur of place — and Blake’s drawings respond in kind: quick, expressive, and full of momentum.

 

What you’ll see

  • A vibrant new body of work made for The Sherborne in 2025

  • Characters and creatures caught in motion — soaring, floating, tumbling, testing gravity

  • Blake’s distinctive line: minimal, energetic, and emotionally precise

About Sir Quentin Blake

Sir Quentin Blake is one of Britain’s best-loved artists, known for a line that feels quick, witty, and deeply human. Across a career spanning decades, he has illustrated more than 300 books — including many unforgettable collaborations with Roald Dahl — and was the first UK Children’s Laureate (1999–2001).

A note on drawing

Quentin Blake is a joyful champion of drawing — not as something you have to be “good” at, but as something you do. The best way to start is simply to begin: wander, look, and let the artworks spark your imagination.

Try this in the gallery: choose an airborne figure you love and sketch it quickly — one lively line to begin, then pause to add the eyes (that’s where expression lives). Give your character a name. Where are they going?

Plan your visit

Opening times: Open daily from 10:30am to 4pm (3pm on Sundays)