Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - was first published in 1965 as three seperate books. Later it was combined and released as one complete volume. This latest edition marks the 60th anniversary of it's arrival

Meet the Potts family: Caractacus, Mimsie, Jemima and Jeremy – the family of crackpot inventors who invent an incredible flying car.

John was known for using all kinds of medium for his artwork. Described by his wife Helen Oxenbury as using, ‘Everything but the kitchen sink. Sprays, glues, inks, pigments and I would sometimes be asked for some flour. He would work over old illustrations to give a very painterly background, then draw the figures on a separate piece of paper, cut them out and stick them down in the foreground. Sometimes he turned paintings upside-down to work on them. In one of his illustrations a very faint bicycle can be seen in the sky!

Chitty’s cover dates from 1964 but sill feels modern, simple and fresh today. Like a modernist poster with bright bold colours and composition
The majority of the spot illustrations are in black and white, but Burningham uses colour in various ways in the double spreads. In some illustrations he uses spot colour and applies it is different ways.
John used collage in some of the illustrations for Chitty. He uses tinted black and white photographs to build on top off with drawings and paint which gives depth and dimension to the illustrations and a filmic quality.

I remember Ian Fleming’s only criticism was that John hadn’t included a ‘Tabac’ sign in a street scene. This was quickly and enthusiastically remedied by John who was, together with Ian, an avid smoker.”