EXTRACTS: llustrators issue 7 © 2014 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

96 Letters @ Win a book worth £125.00! Your feedback is important to us! Send us your views, and we are offering a free book to the writer of the best letter published in each issue. The prize for the best letter published in the next issue is Ron Embleton’s Complete Adventures of Wulf the Briton. The editor’s decision is final. l Please send your comments to the editor, Peter Richardson, at Illustrators. The Book Palace. Jubilee House. Bedwardine Road. Crystal Palace. LONDON. SE19 3AP, or email him at p-r@dircon.co.uk We received the following letter from Henry Gardiner, which sheds new light on the genealogy of the Esso tiger. Henry’s letter is just the kind of response that we love at illustrators, so Henry has been unanimously voted the first winner of our best letter of the issue award and a copy of the limited edition of ‘The Art of Denis McLoughlin’ will be winging it’s way to his home. Dear Peter, I’m a little puzzled by the article on Raymond Sheppard ( see illustrators issue 2 ) stating that he painted the Esso tiger in the early fifties. I was working as a junior in the studio of Astral Arts at the time. Astral specialised in aircraft and car advertising. They had most of the top automotive/aircraft artists on retainer working for Rootes, English Electric , Fairey etc. One of the accounts was Esso . Several beautifully executed gouache paintings of the springing tiger came through the studio. They were the work of John Berry, not Raymond Sheppard. I last saw a quite annoyed John Berry in early 1958. He had been called into the studio to alter the outstretched paw on all his tiger illustrations. A retired army colonel had told Esso that the paw was incorrectly drawn. John had thoroughly researched the subject and wasn’t pleased to have to alter his paintings, that he firmly believed to be correct. However the colonel had influence with the board and his view prevailed, even though it was a daft criticism. It may be that Sheppard took over after this falling out and his daughter got the dates wrong. Best Regards, —Henry Gardiner Dear Peter, Another terrific issue, I really enjoyed the Brownfield feature—his stuff is always quirky and beautifully rendered. The feature on Brian Sanders was equally amazing. I had seen a lot of his work from the mid seventies onwards, but his 1960s art was new to me and pleasantly so, in fact really exciting—love it! Best, —AdamGilchrist We recently received the following email from Mike Dempsey. He is an award winning designer, and was art director of Fontana paperbacks from 1974—1979. Along with David Larkin at Pan paperbacks, Mike was one of the first art directors to regularly commission Alan Lee—you will have seen some of the results of their collaboration in our lead feature on Alan’s work. A visit to Mike’s excellent blog is warmly recommended: mikedempsey.typepad.com/ Hello Peter, I received the copies of illustrators today. Thank you For me it was like an illustrated walk through my life, so many visual triggers Regards, —Mike Dempsey Hi Guys, I have read all your issues to date and think that issue 5 is your best yet. The artwork was amazing and the writing was fascinating but, for me, the most fun part of the issue was reading the story of Anne and Janet Grahame Johnstone. I have been collecting their books for years and I knew a little about their lives but your article on them was just so fascinating, it made me want to dig out their books and look at all their illustrations again. I definitely think you should feature more women illustrators. May I suggest Pauline Baynes or Shirley Hughes? Helen Oxenbury and Nicola Bayley would also be good. Keep up the great work! —Barbara Haeckel Good point Barbara, in fact we have a features in the works on Pauline Baynes and your other suggestions are excellent choices as well. We will see what we can do.