If I were a mad thaumatechnical scientist, who'd invented and built an infernal device, a machine for stealing the talents of other people, there are only two or three illustrators whom I would not hesitate to rob, so jealous am I of the quality of their line.
Robert Ingpen tops my list.
Ingpen is a genius to rival even the great Arthur Rackham. His work is so beguiling that I fell in love with it from the very first time I saw it, just as I did with Rackham's, though I have little knowledge of what he's done outside of childrens literature, his narrative style and execution are very similar. I have two of the books he has illustrated, and they are both excellent. Unfortunately his images are not easy to find online, probably because he is relatively obscure.
Ingpen was born in Australia, in 1936, and thats about all I know of him, except he uses water colours, possibly hand painting over intaglio, but more likely over a pencil sketch. He is very prolific and has illustrated numerous classics, such as 'Peter Pan and Wendy' (see the image at the top of this post), 'The jungle book' (see image below), 'The wind in the willows' and 'Treasure island'. His work is excellent, but best of all, he is extremely prolific, filling the books with many illustrations often with an image for every page, and always with charm and a fine attention to detail. Despite this, he is not well known.
1 comment:
This man's art is so incredible...Thank you for awarding him artist of the month. It is such a pleasure to view such amazing talent and beauty.
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