The illustrator Gerald Rose, who has died aged 87, was the youngest winner of the Kate Greenaway medal for children’s book illustration, in 1960. Then still in his mid-20s and barely out of art school, he would go on, often in partnership with his wife, Elizabeth, a writer, to become an influential artist in the field of children’s picture books. His painterly, playful and gently anarchic artwork continues to be enjoyed around the world.

The Greenaway medal (now renamed the Carnegie medal) was awarded for Rose’s illustrations to Old Winkle and the Seagulls. Written by Elizabeth and published by Faber, the book exemplifies Rose’s graphic ebullience and flair. It also embodies one of his recurrent themes and motifs, the coastal town (in this case Lowestoft, Suffolk), reflecting his lifelong association with the sea.

Born in Hong Kong, Gerald was the son of Rachel (nee Law) and Henley Rose. His father was from Lowestoft, and served in the army in both the first and second world wars, having signed up at the age of 16. He had enjoyed his time stationed in Hong Kong and decided to make it his home, entering the civil service there after he was demobbed.

His mother, originally from a large family in Borneo (Gerald would joke that he was descended from Iban headhunters), was adopted by a missionary, who paid for her schooling at a convent and sent her to Hong Kong to finish her education. There she met and married Henley, the pair sharing a keen interest in sport.

In late 1930s Hong Kong their two children, Gerald and his older sister, Dawn, enjoyed an idyllic early childhood, roaming freely around what were then wild spaces near the family home. Gerald recalled a dramatic encounter with a wild tiger, and the exotic flora and fauna of his childhood would form a regular theme in his work, most directly in a highly emotive autobiographical work for Cambridge University Press, Tiger Dreams (1996).

The childhood idyll was brutally curtailed when the Japanese swept into Hong Kong, and by 1942 the family was broken up. Gerald, Dawn and Rachel were taken to the Stanley internment camp for civilians while Henley was interned at a military camp. They were there for four years, living on bowls of congee that were often full of maggots. Rachel died there of tuberculosis.

On their release, the children were sent to live in Lowestoft with Henley’s mother. Henley remained in Hong Kong, returning to Suffolk as Gerald was leaving school. Gerald had failed his 11-plus and had gained no qualifications at secondary modern school. As Henley took a keen interest in art, he took Gerald to see an exhibition of cartoons in London, where a woman, overhearing the boy’s enthusiastic interest, recommended he consider art school. Gerald liked the idea and began a Saturday morning drawing class, before enrolling full-time at Lowestoft College of Art, where he met Elizabeth Pretty, a fellow student.

His talents were recognised in the form of a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy Schools in 1955. Elizabeth joined him in London to work as a primary school teacher, and the two married later that year. Gerald was spending his days painting from the model at the RA, where his visiting tutors included Stanley Spencer, Carel Weight and John Minton, but he also took a keen interest in the children’s books Elizabeth would bring home.

It was during this time that the two began their collaboration, and their first book, How St Francis Tamed the Wolf, was published by Faber in 1958. One of Gerald’s RA tutors noticed a copy in the window of Hatchards book shop across the road and made a gently disapproving comment about commercial art at Gerald’s next studio session. Now with a young child, the couple found money was tight, but with Wuffles Goes to Town, published as Gerald was graduating in 1959, and the Greenaway success immediately following, he successfully applied for a teaching post at Blackpool College of Art.

In 1965, and now with three children, the family moved to Kent, where Gerald was appointed to teach at Maidstone College of Art under the then principal, the prolific illustrator William Stobbs. There he developed the highly successful BA illustration programme, which he led until 1987. Throughout his teaching career, and beyond, Gerald remained extremely productive as an illustrator and continued to paint, though seldom for commercial sale.

As well as the books with Elizabeth, Gerald illustrated the work of many other authors, including Ted Hughes’s Nessie the Mannerless Monster (1964), James Joyce’s The Cat and the Devil (1965), Paul Jennings’ The Hopping Basket (1965) and The Great Jelly of London (1967), Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky and Other Poems (1968) and a number of Norman Hunter’s Professor Branestawm titles (1981-83). His own later picturebooks included The Tiger Skin Rug (1979) and the award-winning Ahhh! Said Stork (1986).

Gerald and Elizabeth spent their later years living on the East Sussex coast at Hove.

Elizabeth died in 2020. Gerald is survived by their three children, Martin, Richard and Louise, seven grandchildren, two great-grandchildren and his sister Dawn.

• Gerald Rose, illustrator and teacher, born 27 July 1935; died 5 May 2023

• This article was amended on 15 May 2023. The Tiger Skin Rug was first published in 1979 rather than 2011.