Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Ile de la Grande Jatte. [Photo by Wang Kaihao/China Daily]

Li Yiman, a children's book critic attending the exhibition, says: "Gorillas under Browne's pen are all about warm stories. We can see he knows the emotional spectrum of children well, and he knows that a child's imagination needs to be carefully protected. I am amazed by his surrealist style."

People are often reminded of Belgian surrealist artist Rene Magritte's works when they see Browne's illustrations.

Indeed, Browne's work is not merely aimed at children.

"As an artist per se, Browne is highly demanding and has a great attention to detail, despite his wandering imagination," Surina adds. "For example, we can clearly see the hairs of the gorillas in the original pictures.Personally, that attitude is among my favorite of his characteristics."

The British author is renowned for "borrowing" the styles of other established artists and adapting them in an amusing way. A section of the exhibition shows his parodies of many well-known works of the great masters, including Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam, Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, Jean-Francois Millet's The Gleaners, and Salvador Dali's The Persistence of Memory.