Movies Narnia illustrator dies

[Tom Morrow]

Narnia illustrator Pauline Baynes dies

Pauline Baynes has died aged 85 Witty and inventive children's book illustrator famed for her Narnia drawings Manchester Guardian Pauline Baynes, illustrator, born September 9 1922; died August 1 2008 It was by chance, in 1948, that samples from the portfolio of the designer and illustrator Pauline Baynes, who has died aged 85, came to the attention of JRR Tolkien. At that time Tolkien was famous for just one book, his children's novel, The Hobbit, which had been published to great acclaim 11 years earlier. The medieval style of some of Baynes's drawings were ideally suited for Tolkien's Farmer Giles of Ham, which he had also written before the second war, but which was only to be published in 1949. Baynes produced pen and ink drawings and three coloured plates, which Tolkien humorously maintained reduced his text to a "commentary". At the end of the 1940s another author, and good friend of Tolkien, was CS Lewis, and he also liked Baynes's illustrations. The result was a commission to illustrate the book for which both author and illustrator are best remembered, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, published in 1950. Six more volumes were to follow of what would be known as the Chronicles of Narnia, concluding with The Last Battle, in 1956. Despite other artists ringing the changes from time to time with the covers, sometimes disastrously, it is her classic line drawings which have remained an integral part of every subsequent edition of the series. Baynes went on to become one of the foremost children's book illustrators of the 20th century. Her highly designed style - witty, inventive and invariably bursting beyond the borders of the page - her strong sense of colour and line, and her careful attention to detail would become instantly recognisable. by David Henshall complete article

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