Joan Kiddell-Monroe was born in Clacton-on-Sea on 9th August 1908 and studied at Willesden and Chelsea School of Art.
She started work in an advertising studio, but left to become a free-lance artist. She married Webster Murray, a Canadian illustrator and portrait painter, in the late 1930s, then travelled in Africa.
She worked for the WVS in England during WW2, leaving to have a son in 1944. Her husband died in 1957, and she toured Africa again with her son, and then settled in Majorca where she continued to illustrate though she did no more writing.
Most of her book illustrations were done after 1940. Her work often deals with animals and life in Africa and other countries overseas.
Do you have an image of Joan Kiddell-Monroe?
Four of her own stories for children (In His Little Black Waistcoat series) feature a panda as the hero.
She was a prolific illustrator in the 1940s, ?50s and ?60s, using various media, including scraperboard, wash and pen and ink.
Her work shows a remarkable use of white space and fine line. For her version of Arabian Nights, published by Dent in 1951, she used a formal decorative treatment, while the Aesop?s Fables, published by Blackwell in 1972, was illustrated in vivid, flat colours. The work she did as series illustrator for the OUP series on folk tales of the world is particularly successful.
Joan is also responsible for illustrating all six books from Ladybird series 417, commonly known as the Adventures of Wonk.
Most of the information above is taken from 'The Dictionary of 20th Century British Book Illustrators' by Alan Horne, published by the 'Antique Collectors? Club', 1994 - ISBN 1-85149-108-2
Joan Kiddell-Monroe
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With the outbreak of war in 1939 paper was rationed. Part of W&H’s allocation was used for the production of servicing booklets and charts for suppliers of military vehicles.
