David McKee

David John McKee was born on 2 January 1935 in Plymouth, Devon, and raised in Tavistock. After attending grammar school, he studied at Plymouth College of Art.

While still at college, he began selling one-off cartoons, particularly to the national press. On leaving college, he continued this to support himself while painting, drawing regularly for, among others, Punch, Reader's Digest, and The Times Educational Supplement.

The first book he sold was of a story he had told at college, Two Can Toucan. It is about a toucan who can carry two cans of paint on its enormous bill. This was published by Abelard-Schuman in 1964; a 1985 edition with new illustrations by McKee was re-issued in 2001 by Andersen Press.

McKee had homes in London and the south of France where he lived with his partner Bakhta, a French-Algerian art-dealer. He shared with her an interest in collecting drawings and African tribal art. He won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 1987. His previous wife was Barbara Ennuss, with whom he had three children. He was awarded a BookTrust Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020, in recognition of his whole body of work. He declared it a "shock" but "fantastic", and said he had "never been one for the spotlight or winning awards". McKee was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from Plymouth College of Art in 2011.

Each year, instead of Christmas cards, McKee would send handmade New Year's greeting envelopes to relatives and friends, typically on a theme of surprises to come or a farewell to the previous year. Children's book publisher, Klaus Flugge documented some of the illustrated envelopes he was sent by artists, including McKee, in 2011.

Death

McKee died after a short illness in Provence, France, on 6 April 2022, aged 87.