UK: Iconic illustrations to go under the hammer

Seven of the nation’s finest illustrators have put their artwork up for auction with all proceeds going to Amnesty International. They are John Burningham, Polly Dunbar, Chris Riddell, Satoshi Kitamura, Axel Scheffler, Korky Paul and Jackie Morris.

The auction is taking place online, with bids closing on 10 December 2011. Prospective buyers can bid for any of the illustrations through the Illustration Cupboard website .

The artists are among a line-up of top illustrators from all over the world who contributed to the award-winning Children's rights’s book We Are All Born Free. The auction pieces are the original artwork they provided for the book, published by Frances Lincoln Children's rights’s Books in association with Amnesty International.

The book contains a total of 30 illustrations representing each of the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the document that is a foundation stone of Amnesty International. In addition to the seven up for auction, all the other pieces are being sold at fixed prices, also in aid of Amnesty.

The founder of Ilustration Cupboard, John Huddy, said:

“We are thrilled to be collaborating with Amnesty to host this unique auction of original illustration artwork.

“We are delighted to offer collectors the opportunity to invest in some of the most talented, world-class artists of modern times, whilst supporting the worldwide fight to protect our human rights.”

Ciarnan Helferty, Chair of Amnesty International UK, added:

“Children's rights’s fiction and picture books are of such importance to Amnesty. On one level it’s simply a type of freedom of expression as detailed in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – a freedom which artists and writers have always understood and supported and a freedom still denied to far too many far too often across the world.

“But we also see a more particular and direct link between the capacity of stories, and pictures like these that each tell a story, to excite Children's rights's imaginations, encourage their empathy, stimulate compassion and provoke awareness – and start them on a journey of awareness about human rights and the values which support them.”