John Vernon Lord is an illustrator, author and teacher. He is widely recognized for his illustrations of various texts such as ''

Aesop's Fables Aesop's Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a Slavery in ancient Greece, slave and storyteller who lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 Before the Common Era, BCE. Of varied and unclear origins, the stor ...

'',''The Nonsense Verse of

Edward Lear Edward Lear (12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) was an English artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet, who is known mostly for his literary nonsense in poetry and prose and especially his limerick (poetry), limericks, a form he popularised. ...

''; and the Folio Society's ''Myths and Legends of the British Isles.'' He has also illustrated classics of

English literature English literature is literature written in the English language from the English-speaking world. The English language has developed over more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian languages, Anglo-Frisian d ...

, including the works of

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet, mathematician, photographer and reluctant Anglicanism, Anglican deacon. His most notable works are ''Alice ...

and

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...

. Lord has written and illustrated several books for children, which have been published and translated into multiple languages. His book '' The Giant Jam Sandwich'' has been in print since 1972. He was head of various departments, including the Head of the School of Design, at Brighton Art School, Polytechnic and University. He is now Professor Emeritus at the

University of Brighton The University of Brighton is a public university based in Brighton on the south coast of England. Its roots can be traced back to 1858 when the Brighton School of Art was opened in the Royal Pavilion. It achieved university status in 1992. T ...

where he was Professor of Illustration 1986-99. An Honorary D.Litt. was conferred upon him by the University of Brighton in 2000. He was the chair of the Graphic Design Board of the Council for National Academic Awards 1981-84.

Background and education

John Vernon Lord was born in 1939 in

Glossop Glossop is a market town in the borough of High Peak (borough), High Peak, Derbyshire, England, east of Manchester, north-west of Sheffield and north of Matlock, Derbyshire, Matlock. Near Derbyshire's borders with Cheshire, Greater Mancheste ...

, Derbyshire. He is the son of a baker and a ship's hairdresser. He attended Salford School of Art, now the

University of Salford The University of Salford is a Public university, public research university in Salford, Greater Manchester, Salford, Greater Manchester, England, west of Manchester city centre. The Royal Technical Institute, Salford, which opened in 1896, be ...

in Lancashire (1956–60); and completed his formal education at the

Central School of Arts and Crafts The Central School of Art and Design was a art school, school of fine arts, fine and applied arts in London, England. It offered foundation and degree level courses. It was established in 1896 by the London County Council as the Central School ...

in London, where he was taught by the

modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

writer and artist

Mervyn Peake Mervyn Laurence Peake (9 July 1911 – 17 November 1968) was a British writer, artist, poet, and illustrator. He is best known for what are usually referred to as the '' Gormenghast'' books. The four works were part of what Peake conceived ...

and the surrealist Cecil Collins, amongst others. In his 2007 retrospective, ''Drawing Upon Drawing'' he states that,

"During (his) student days, in the late 1950s the work of
Gerard Hoffnung Gerard Hoffnung (22 March 192528 September 1959) was an artist and musician, best known for his humorous works. Raised in Germany, Hoffnung was brought to London as a boy to escape the Nazis. Over the next two decades in England, he became know ...
,
André François André François may refer to: *André François (athlete) (born 1964), Vincentian sprinter *André François (footballer) (1886–1915), French international footballer *André François (cartoonist) (1915–2005), Hungarian-born French cartoonist ...
,
Ronald Searle Ronald William Fordham Searle (3 March 1920 – 30 December 2011) was an English artist and satirical cartoonist, comics artist, sculptor, medal designer and illustrator. He is perhaps best remembered as the creator of St Trinian's School and f ...
and
Saul Steinberg Saul Steinberg (June 15, 1914, Rm. Sărat, Romania – May 12, 1999, New York City) was a Romanian-born American artist, best known for his work for ''The New Yorker'', most notably ''View of the World from 9th Avenue''. He described himself ...
...and, to a certain extent..the work of
Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...
"

as was "an abiding interest" in Victorian

steel engraving Steel engraving is a technique for printing illustrations on paper using steel printing plates instead of copper, the harder metal allowing a much longer print run before the image quality deteriorates. It has been rarely used in artistic printmak ...

Drawing for a living

In 1961, Lord began work as a freelance illustrator, joining the agents Saxon Artists, in New Oxford Street, London. This required him to draw on demand, day in and out, often for long hours. He described the difference between life as an art student and life as a professional illustrator in the following terms:

"As well as drawing the insides of stomachs, I tackled everything that came my way. I carried out portraits of company directors for their retirement dinner menu covers, buildings for brochures, strip cartoons, maps and humorous drawings for advertisements....gardens and their plants, vegetables, mazes, refrigerators, dishwashers, totem poles, kitchen utensils, resuscitation diagrams, all kinds of furniture, typewriters, agricultural crop spraying machines, door locks, folded towels, decorative letters, Zodiac signs, animals....When you are a student there is a tendency at first to limit yourself to draw only what you ''like'' drawing. This ultimately shackles you and limits your repertoire ...(it) narrows the margin of what you can depict in an image and consequently stifles imagination and ideas."

As a commercial artist, in 1968 Lord designed the album cover for ''

The Book of Taliesyn ''The Book of Taliesyn'' is the second studio album by the English rock band Deep Purple, recorded only three months after '' Shades of Deep Purple'' and released by Tetragrammaton Records in October 1968, just before their first US tour. The ...

'' by the band

Deep Purple Deep Purple are an English rock band formed in London in 1968. They are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal music, heavy metal and modern hard rock, although their musical style has varied throughout their career. Originally for ...

. The brief from the artist's agent is detailed in ''Drawing upon Drawing'' as follows:

"the agent gave me the title saying that the art director wanted a 'fantasy Arthurian touch' and to include hand lettering for the title and the musicians' names. I mainly drew from The Book of Taliesin, a collection of poems, said to be written by the sixth century Welsh bard Taliesin."

Brighton

In 1968, Lord became a teacher at Brighton College of Art (now the

Faculty of Arts A faculty is a division within a university or college comprising one subject area or a group of related subject areas, possibly also delimited by level (e.g. undergraduate). In North America, academic divisions are sometimes titled colleges, sc ...

). He concentrated on the illustration of books. He was commissioned to illustrate the ''Adventures of Jabotí on the Amazon'' and ''

Reynard the Fox Reynard the Fox is a literary cycle of medieval allegorical Dutch, English, French and German fables. The first extant versions of the cycle date from the second half of the 12th century. The genre was popular throughout the Late Middle Ages, ...

'' and so began a love affair with narrative illustration. During the 1970s, while a teacher at Brighton, he wrote ''The Giant Jam Sandwich'', ''The Runaway Roller Skate'' and ''Mr Mead and his Garden'', and illustrated

Conrad Aiken Conrad Potter Aiken (August 5, 1889 – August 17, 1973) was an American writer and poet, honored with a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award, and was United States Poet Laureate from 1950 to 1952. His published works include poetry, short st ...

's ''Who's Zoo'' Lord produced several illustrations for '' Punch'' and the ''

Radio Times ''Radio Times'' is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in September 1923 by John Reith, then general manage ...

''. He wrote articles and gave public lectures on illustration as an art form. He began to work in black and white. In an article on cross hatching Lord writes:

"The whiteness of the paper already exists before you proceed to draw. It has established itself as a fundamental entity; a ground to tread on. What marks you make on the paper are as important as the marks you don't make; or is the opposite the case? The editing and selection of gap-making is fundamental to drawing. Nothingness, therefore, allows something else to exist. Planets move in space. Planets need space to move about in. Space doesn't need planets. The pencil (or whatever other drawing instrument you are using) clothes the naked surface of the paper with a network of marks and the paper often peeps through the drawing. A picture is made up of a balancing between the making, the removing, and the not-making of marks. Somehow a drawing represents the trails of a journey like, as Klee put it – 'taking a line for a walk', which is a far more conducive activity than taking a dog for a walk."

In 1986, he was appointed Professor of Illustration at

and his inaugural lecture ''Illustrating Lear's Nonsense'' was published a few years later. Robert Mason reviewing Lord's lecture ''A Journey of Drawing An Illustration of a Fable'' writes:

Lord's fastidious verbal dissection of the process of making a single pen and ink illustration, The Crow And The Sheep, over a period of 11 hours and 11 minutes on the 10th and 11th of February 1985, was intimate and unique. Its very length, and its combination of intense focus interspersed with frequent digressions – about how to avoid actually working, the tendency of Rotring pens to clog, contemporary news topics (mortgage rate increases / African famines / American defence spending…) and the maximum and minimum temperatures of the days in question (minus 3 and minus 7 degrees Fahrenheit) made the audience feel at one with the process..."''The Journal of the Association of Illustrators'' August / September 2003
Robert mason reviews John Vernon Lord.

Gallery

Image:25 Daddy Long legs.jpg, 'The Daddy Long-legs and the Fly', The Nonsense Verse of Edward Lear, Jonathan Cape,1984. Image:The Seal Circles the Boat.jpg, 'The seal circles the boat all day', The Icelandic Sagas, The Folio Society, 2002. Image:'muchness' for Alice089.jpg, 'A drawing of things beginning with M and Muchness', Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Inky Parrot Press, 2009. Image:04.JVL-Octopuss from Who's Zoo.jpg, 'Octopuss', Who's Zoo by Conrad Aiken, Jonathan Cape,1977. Image:26 the crow.jpg, 'The Fox and the Crow', Aesop's Fables, Jonathan Cape, 1989. Image:28 Uncle Arly.jpg, 'Uncle Arly', The Nonsense Verse of Edward Lear, Jonathan Cape, 1984.

Selected publications as an illustrator

*1965 A Visit to Bedsyde Manor, by Stanley Penn, Guinness Publications. *1968 Adventures of Jabotí on the Amazon, by Lena F. Hurlong, Abelard-Schuman. *1969 Reynard the Fox, by Roy Brown, Abelard-Schuman. *1970 A Natural History of Man, by J.K. Brierley, Heinemann. *1970 The Truck on the Track, by Janet Burroway, Jonathan Cape. *1970 Dinosaurs Don't Die, by Ann Coates, Longman. *1972 The Adventures of Brer Rabbit, after Joel Chandler Harris, BBC Jackanory. *1975 Sword at Sunset, by Rosemary Sutcliff, (Edito-Service), Geneva. *1977 Who's Zoo, poems by Conrad Aiken, Jonathan Cape. *1984 The Nonsense Verse of Edward Lear, Jonathan Cape. *1989 The Song that Sings the Bird, poems chosen by Ruth Craft and illustrated by JVL, Collins. *1989 Aesop's Fables, verses by James Michie, Jonathan Cape. *1994 The Squirrel and the Crow, by Wendy Cope, 'Prospero Poets' series for the Clarion Press. *1995 King Arthur's Knights, by Henry Gilbert, Macmillan. *1998 Myths and Legends of the British Isles, edited by Richard Barber, The Folio Society. *2002 Icelandic Sagas, Volume 2, translated by Magnus Magnusson, The Folio Society. *2005 Epics of the Middle Ages, edited by Richard Barber, The Folio Society. *2006

The Hunting of the Snark ''The Hunting of the Snark'', subtitled ''An Agony, in Eight Fits'', is a poem by the English writer Lewis Carroll. It is typically categorised as a nonsense poem. Written between 1874 and 1876, it borrows the setting, some creatures, and eig ...

, by

, Artists' Choice Editions, The Foundry, Church Hanborough. *2009

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (also known as ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English Children's literature, children's novel by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics university don, don at the University of Oxford. It details the story of a ...

, by Lewis Carroll, Artists' Choice Editions. *2011 Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, by

, Artists' Choice Editions *2014 Finnegans Wake, by

The Folio Society The Folio Society is an independent London-based publisher, founded by Charles Ede in 1947 and incorporated in 1971. Formerly privately owned, it became an employee ownership trust in 2021. It produces illustrated hardback fine press editio ...

*2017 Ulysses, by

, The Folio Society *2020 ''Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung: A Companion'', English translation by Stewart Spencer, The Folio Society

Books

*1972, '' The Giant Jam Sandwich'', set to verse by Janet Burroway,

Jonathan Cape Jonathan Cape is a British publishing firm headquartered in London and founded in 1921 by Herbert Jonathan Cape, who was head of the firm until his death. Cape and his business partner Wren Howard (1893–1968) set up the publishing house in ...

. *1973, ''The Runaway Roller Skate'', Jonathan Cape. *1974, ''Mr Mead and his Garden'', Jonathan Cape. *1979, ''Miserable Aunt Bertha'', set to verse by Fay Maschler, Jonathan Cape. *1986, ''The Doodles and Diaries of John Vernon Lord'', Camberwell Press. *2007, ''Drawing Upon Drawing: 50 Years of Illustrating'',

. *2009, ''John's Journal Jottings'', Inky Parrott Press. *2014, ''Drawn to Drawing'', by John Vernon Lord, Nobrow Press *2018, ''A Drawing a Day in 2016'', by John Vernon Lord, with 366 illustrations by John Vernon Lord, Inky Parrott Press, Oxford, 2018 *2018 '' John Vernon Lord: Illustrating Carroll and Joyce,'' catalogue to accompany an exhibition with a foreword by Chris Riddell and an introduction with 46 illustrations by JVL, The House of Illustration, London, 2018. *2019 '' John Lord’s Notebooks: DCC:451'', a Keepsake for the Double Crown Club, Including 36 pages of notebook images by John Vernon Lord, Coventry and Warwickshire Print Ltd, December 2019. *2023 '' Random Notes about Doodling, Sketching, Drawing and Illustrating'', by John Vernon Lord, with 6 short essays and many pages from sketchbooks and notebooks. Introduction by Brian Sibley, Studio 245, Unseen Sketchbooks, 2023.

Awards

In 1985 his The Nonsense Verse of Edward Lear won the ‘Redwood Burn Award’ sponsored by the NBL and Publishers’ Association; and it also won the ‘General Selectors’ Award’ by the British Federation of Master Printers. In 1990 his illustrations for Aesop’s Fables won the overall prize in the ‘V&A/W.H Smith Illustration Awards’. In 2018 his illustrations for Ulysses won the ‘V&A Illustration Award for Book Illustration’ and the winner of the ‘2018 Moira Gemmill Illustrator of the Year Prize�

References

External links

The Journal of the Association of Illustrators

Four Generations of Illustrators

Links to lectures and articles

''Teaching Illustration''

''A Journey Of Drawing an Illustration of a Fable''

''John Vernon Lord on Illustrating Ulysses'' The Folio Society 16 May 2016''In Conversation with John Vernon Lord'' 9 January 2017''Drawn to Drawing by John Vernon Lord'' 3 March 2015
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lord, John Vernon 1939 births Living people English writers British illustrators Alumni of the University of Salford Academics of the University of Brighton Alumni of the Central School of Art and Design English male writers People from Glossop