News and reviews

A brief round-up of current news stories, exhibitions and competitions – plus new books, reader offers, catalogues and websites, auction highlights and dates you need to remember.

Notebook

Ian Beck is a one-man creative industry - he has designed album covers (notably for Elton John’s Goodbye  Yellow Brick Road) and advertisements, illustrated many children’s books and written novels for younger readers, as well as creating art for hospital wards and directing films. He takes us through the roughs he prepares for a picture book and explains how these gradually metamorphose into the finished product

Exhibition: George Him
A Polish Jew who fled Nazi persecution, George Him forged a successful design career in Britain and, in doing so, introduced a new European Modernist aesthetic to his adopted country. Whether working as half of the Lewitt-Him partnership, or on his own projects, Him shaped the look of propaganda posters and advertisements in the post-war period and became a Royal Designer for Industry. As a major exhibition of his work goes on show at the House of Illustration, we find out more.

Illustrating Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë’s vivid descriptions of windswept moors and raw emotions have endless appeal for readers and have secured an enduring visual legacy in classic films. How have illustrators interpreted these famous landscapes and iconic characters and have they managed to add something of their own to this much-loved and familiar text?

The Society of Wood Engravers 
This year the Society of Wood Engravers celebrates its 100th anniversary. Its current chair examines the history of the craft and the society, and highlights the diversity of wood-engraved illustrations along with some of the famous names who have contributed to its development and popularity. 

Harry Furniss
Although best-known today for his satirical cartoon lampooning an advert for Pears’ Soap, Harry Furniss enjoyed a long and successful career creating political cartoons for Punch and numerous illustrations for magazines and children’s books, including Lewis Carroll’s two Sylvie and Bruno stories and a series of books by G E Farrow. We find out more about the man and his career.

George Sheringham
Strongly influenced by the Arts & Crafts, Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements, George Sheringham was a successful illustrator and stage designer whose work for D’Oyly Carte Opera, among others, made him well-known in his own lifetime and a rival to more prolific illustrators including Edmund Dulac. We examine a series of remarkable decorative silk panels he created depicting scenes from Welsh mythology.

Graduate  round-up
Two young artists fresh from their degree coursesat The University of Gloucestershire discuss their current work, their inspirations and their ambitions for their future artistic careers.

Resources

Exhibition: Barnett Freedman
Despite his enduring popularity as an outstanding typographer and lithographer, Barnett Freedman’s legacy has perhaps been unfairly neglected, given the current fame of his RCA classmates such as Eric Ravilious. Now, however, a major exhibition at Chichester’s Pallant House Gallery is setting out to change all this, bringing his design and illustration work to the fore.

Look and learn
What are the key events, shows and exhibitions coming up in the next few months? Find out what you  can’t afford to miss.