I've just been catching up with some recent email and read that Pauline Baynes, whose illustrations gave life to Narnia, as well as appearing in books by J.R.R. Tolkien, Mary Norton, Richard Adams and countless others, passed away earlier this month. Writer and broadcaster Brian Sibley pays tribute to her here.
For me, Baynes' Narnia drawings are integral to my enjoyment of the Narnia books, and my first reading of Lord of the Rings, as she provided the cover of the battered edition I still have. (I hadn't realized until reading Sibley's tribute that she also provided the art for the edition of Warership Down I read as a child, too).
I think some artists' work gets so linked with a certain book it's often a jar to see it visualised by someone else. Baynes' work on Narnia will forever be linked to that saga for me. She'll be much missed.
Pauline Baynes, artist and illustrator, born 9 September 1922, died 1 August 2008, aged 85
• Read Brian Sibley's online tribute to Pauline Baynes
• Read Brian Sibley's full obituary to Pauline in The Independent
• Read David Henshall's obituary in The Guardian
• Read Charlotte Cory's obituary in The Telegraph
• Read the obituary in The Times
No comments:
Post a Comment