EXTRACTS: Illustrators Issue 6 © 2013 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

4 Sidney Cooper Art School in Canterbury on a part-time basis, after a special recommendation from a teacher at his primary school. In 1939, at the age of fourteen he received a full-time scholarship to the art school, but four months later, at the outbreak of World War II, he left the school to start work. He initially started training to become a book- binder, but from 1940 to 1942, he worked as a junior draughtsman for two aircraft manufacturing companies helping the war effort. He then went to work for a display company in London’s west end. He became a part-time Air Raid Warden, spending many night-hours during the Blitz on the roof of his employer’s building, watching for fires started by incendiary bombs, dropped by Hitler’s Luftwaffe. In his spare time, he also attended an art school situated just off Fleet Street There followed a period working for War Artists in London’s Cambridge Circus, and with Cavendish Studios, producing large paintings of air, sea and land battles. After the war he worked as a freelance on a full-time basis doing a lot of work as a fashion artist for Tailor & Cutter magazine, Man & His Clothes, and The Draper’s Record. In the 1950s he decided that he wanted to be a magazine illustrator, and worked at producing sample illustrations to show to prospective clients. He was influenced by the work of American illustrators Coby Whitmore, Joe de Mers, and Al Parker; whose paintings TOP: A typically atmospheric Wyles illustration for Woman’s Own . ABOVE: Book Cover for Collins ‘Boarding’ author Patrick O’Brien. FACING PAGE: The artist’s ability to create moody yet historically convincing imagery is perfectly captured in this magazine illustration.