However, in March 1944, the Admiralty asked the WAAC if they could have him ‘on loan’ from the War Office. After the War, Ardizzone resumed his freelance career and received commissions from The Strand Magazine for cover artwork, from the Ealing film studios for promotional material and from the Guinness company for adverts.

The famously critical Maurice Sendak, author of the beloved Where the Wild Things Are, wrote in 1967 of a particular series of images that [they are] a charming example of the various and unique abilities of this artist who is possibly the supreme contemporary example of the genuine illustrator. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, retold by Eleanor Graham, and A Ring of Bells (1962), John Betjeman's abridged version for children of his autobiographical poem Summoned by Bells (1960).

But whilst firmly within this tradition, these artists were also modernisers, especially in the adoption of new subject matter.

This situation changed following the first German air attacks in the autumn of 1940, and Ardizzone was transferred to the War Office at the request of the Ministry of Information’s Director-General to record air raid subjects. Rupert Shephard Rupert Norman Shephard (1909-1992) was one of the last of the group of gifted artist-teachers to emerge from the Slade in the 1920s; his contemporaries included William Coldstream, Rodrigo Moynihan, Claude Rodgers, Victor Pasmore and Carel Weight.

Publication of Brian Alderson's Edward Ardizzone, A Preliminary Hand List of his Illustrated Books 1929-70. As a student he visited Fry’s (1910) Post-Impressionist exhibition at the Grafton Galleries, and whilst he was enthralled by the use of colour, he judged the work neglectful of content. He attended school from the age of seven for at least two years, and at the age of nine – or such was his claim – he may have been employed as cabin boy to the fishermen working the waters off the Cornish coast. According to CCSU, some runners-up through 2002 were Commended (from 1959) or Highly Commended (from 1974). During the war Ardizzone was appointed Official War Artist by Sir Kenneth Clark (of ‘Civilization’ fame – an admirer and collector of Ardizzone’s work).

Its aim was to severely weaken Germany's ability to fight, which was central to the Allies' strategy for winning the war. His legacy persists through the many publications that remain in print bearing his compassionate imagery. Spending his days on paperwork and administration, in the evenings he began to attend classes at the Westminster School of Art, tutored by the Camden Group painter and illustrator Walter Bayes and the figurative artist Bernard Meninsky (the only formal training he would receive throughout his entire career).

He was an official war artist during World War II, working widely in Europe and North Africa, and his illustrated war diaries are notable records. He sketched these at the scene, unlike his overseas drawings, which were sourced from notes and memory as he generally felt uncomfortable drawing in public. He encountered Surrealism, and after moving back to England became a founding member of the British Surrealist Group. In 1943 Ardizzone understood that an invasion of Europe was imminent and, with the help of his friends in the 50th division, landed at Sicily in July of that year.

Edward Jeffrey Irving Ardizzone, (16 October 1900 – 8 November 1979), who sometimes signed his work " DIZ", was a British painter, printmaker and war artist, and the author and illustrator of books, many of them for children. In 1936 he completed the first part of what would be his defining series of work, the first of the ‘Tim’ books: Little Tim and the Brave Sea Captain.The ‘Phoney War’ came to a dramatic end when Germany launched attacks on France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg on 10 May. Privately he continued to paint, mainly with oils, and to study the works of the great masters, Cézanne, Matisse and Picasso in particular. Though just a small boy at the time, the journey to England was to have a strong influence on the content of his later work. After the war he established a strong following as a book illustrator, titles ranging from Walter de la Mare’s Peacock Pie and John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress to H E Bates’ Uncle Silas stories and Maurice Gorham’s Back to the Local.