18 January 1934 – 9 August 2022 Raymond Redvers Briggs CBE was an English illustrator, cartoonist, graphic novelist, and author.
His 1978 story The Snowman, a book without words whose cartoon adaptation is broadcast on television and whose musical adaptation is presented every Christmas, became critically and commercially successful among both adults and children. He is best known in Britain for this work.
Briggs received the British Library Association’s Kate Greenaway Medals in 1966 and 1973, which are awarded for the best children’s book illustration by a British author or illustrator.
Raymond Briggs Young
The daughter of milkman Ernest Redvers Briggs (1900–1971) and housewife Ethel Bowyer (1895–1971), who wed in 1930, Briggs was born on January 18, 1934, in Wimbledon, Surrey (now London).
He was evacuated to Dorset during the Second World War and then later returned to London.Briggs attended Rutlish School, which was a grammar school at the time.
He began drawing cartoons at a young age and, despite his father’s efforts to talk him out of it, went on to study painting at Wimbledon School of Art from 1949 to 1953 and typography at Central School of Art.
He served as a conscript for the National Service in the Royal Corps of Signals at Catterick from 1953 to 1955, where he was promoted to draughtsman.
Who is Raymond Briggs Young?
Raymond Briggs, who was born in London in 1934, attended the Slade School of Art in London as well as Wimbledon School of Art. His initial employment was in marketing.