Oliver Jeffers

An overview of the life and work of Oliver Jeffers, the Belfast-raised illustrator, bookmaker, painter, designer, campaigner and global superstar of the world of visual communication

A phenomenon of 21st-century bookmaking, Oliver Jeffers has carved an extraordinary career that shows no sign of slowing. Still only in his forties, he has published an array of hugely popular books, both as illustrator and author-illustrator. This overview of his life and work – so far – charts his passion for the environment and his quest to understand humanity’s major challenges, and the impact this has had on his creative and intellectual output. The list of Jeffers’s accomplishments is long and glittering: he has held numerous one-man shows, in both the UK and the USA, and was appointed an MBE in 2022 for services to the arts. Most importantly, however, he has tirelessly pushed the boundaries of what a picturebook can be. His regular exploration of existential issues – whether through illustration or other media such as site-specific installation or film – has exerted a major influence on the practice of authorial picturebook-making. This addition to Thames & Hudson’s acclaimed Illustrators series is the first book to focus closely on Oliver Jeffers’s practice as an illustrator, offering an in-depth analysis of his processes, influences, styles and subjects as they have changed over time.

Author Biography

Martin Salisbury is Professor of Illustration at Cambridge School of Art in Anglia Ruskin University, where he designed and led the world-renowned MA Children’s Book Illustration programme. He has written several best-selling books about illustration, including Children’s Picturebooks: The Art of Visual Storytelling with Morag Styles (2012), which was awarded the UK Literacy Association’s Academic Book of the Year prize. At Thames & Hudson he has authored The Illustrated Dust Jacket: 1920-1970, Miroslav Šašek (The Illustrators series), Drawing for Illustration and Illustrators’ Sketchbooks.