Michael Foreman (born 21 March 1938) is a British author and illustrator, one of the best-known and most prolific creators of children's books. He won the 1982 and 1989 Kate Greenaway Medals for British children's book illustration and he was a runner-up five times. For his contribution as a children's illustrator he was UK nominee in 1988 and again in 2010 for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest recognition available to creators of children's books.

Life

Foreman was born and grew up in Pakefield, near Lowestoft, Suffolk, where his mother kept the village shop. His father died a month before he was born. When he was three, the family home was hit by a German bomb, but he survived along with his mother and two older brothers. He studied at Lowestoft School of Art, and later in London at the Royal College of Art, where he won a scholarship to the United States. Foreman was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2022 Birthday Honours for services to literature.

Approach to illustration

Foreman learned to respond instantly to text as an art student. Having drawn for the newspapers and for the police, drawing female suspects when Identikit only catered for men, he gained valuable drawing experience. A travel scholarship took him all around the world, drawing landscapes, architecture and wildlife. Although many of his books feature luminous watercolours, it is the drawing that he sees as vital: "It's all in the drawing and illustration. It's a question of creating another world, believable in its own right. I think I was very lucky to have started art school so young when they actually taught Art. It was a rigorous training – not just painting and drawing from life – but hours of anatomy and perspective. ... it really taught you to understand what you were looking at." His aim in illustration is to make the worlds created believable, real: "I keep trying to make things more real, not in a literal photographic sense, but in an emotional sense, telling a story by capturing the essence of the situation, giving it some meaning."

Selected works

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

Awards