Illustration Volume 22 Spring 2025 Issue 83
We open issue 83 with Joe Whitlock-Blundell’s tribute to Simon Brett, the great wood engraver, who died in January of this year. Joe explores Simon’s considerable artistic range and explains his significant contribution to Folio. Simon’s wonderful designs – sometimes dramatic, sometimes still and reflective – are followed by another set of outstanding illustrations, this time by the well-known children’s writer and artist, Laurence Anholt. In conversation with Laurence, the Editor probes his inspirations and ideas, focusing on his outstanding books for budding art-historians, “Anholt’s Artists.” A different sort of children’s illustrator is the French designer, Charlotte Gastaut, whose richly imaginative world, dream-like and saturated in colour, is the subject of an essay by another accomplished artist, Amy Hunter. Illustration 83 will be a veritable treasure-trove of images drawn from these outstanding practitioners, but we have plenty of reflections on the artists of the past as well, and how they engaged with their historical periods. Catherine Golden takes a look at visual responses to the Great Exhibition of 1851 – which turn out to be more concerned with class and race than the artifacts on display. The art of George Adamson is another artist of his time, and Mark Bryant provides a richly detailed account of a designer who produced some famous front covers, notably those for the work of Ted Hughes. What remains? Well, the usual news and reviews, along with a glimpse some up-and-coming talent.
