Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

The Times NOVEMBER 24, 2012 - by Jack Malvern

AN ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO THE SIMPLE THINGS IN LIFE THAT MAKE CELEBRITIES HAPPY

Spaghetti and meatballs, brown brogues and swimming / Raining and sleeping and Mozart and fishing / Reading, James Taylor, The Whitsun Weddings... these are a few of their favourite things.

Stephen Fry, Jeremy Paxman, Jamie Lee Curtis, Sir David Attenborough and a dozen other household names have offered lists of the clothing, music and animals that bring them joy - to be depicted by the most accomplished illustrators in Britain.

The images will be auctioned by Sotheby's on December 10 to raise money for the House of Illustration, a project to create a permanent museum for British illustrators.

The loves of Fry, Lee Curtis and Paxman were turned into illustrations by Geoff Grandfield, Elizabeth Blue and Matthew Richardson.

Other celebrities to have their whims turned into artworks included the comedians David Walliams and Terry Jones. Quentin Blake, a founder of the project and an illustrator best known for his work on Roald Dahl's books, collaborated with the Little Britain star. Walliams is shown swimming along a river while Lara Stone, his wife, holds the pocket watch she gave him for his fortieth birthday. She is surrounded by pyjamas, spaghetti and meatballs, a copy of Philip Larkin's The Whitsun Weddings and their terrier chewing on a brown brogue.

Jones's whims were drawn by Michael Foreman. The Monty Python actor is embedded in Hampstead Heath,, while Rupert the Bear shelters under an umbrella made from an upturned bowl of lamb and potato pie.

Unlike most participants, who chose a dog as their favourite animal, Attenborough selected a human baby. In Emma Chichester Clark's painting it lies at the feet of a blue-footed booby - a reference to his forthcoming programme about the Galapagos Islands. Near by are a grand piano, Rainier cherries and a copy of Shifts And Expedients Of Camp Life, a nineteenth century manual for the intrepid.

Michael Morpurgo, the children's author best known for War Horse, had his foibles made into a collage by Olivia Lomenech Gill. A redjacket appears in a scrapbook alongside bright red shiny shoes, an elephant and a copy of Jean Giono's book, The Man Who Planted Trees. Others who submitted their lists were Joanna Lumley, Loudon Wainwright Ill, Christopher Frayling, Florence Welch, Brian Eno, Ruby Wax, David Baddie!, Baroness Grey Thompson and Lara Stone. All the money raised will go towards the creation of a gallery in King's Cross, North London.

Joanna Lumley's list, reproduced by Posy Simmonds, depicts her posing in a Jean Muir jacket while surveying a podium of items including secateurs, Marmite, A Dance To The Music Of Time by Anthony Powell, wellington boots and "all animals, especially piglets".