John Vernon Lord: Illustrating Carroll and Joyce

Lovely exhibition at the House of Illustration of work by John Vernon Lord.
 
The show looked at recent work by Lord illustrating three books by Lewis Carroll and two by James Joyce. I loved the inclusion of his note books in the show so you could see how ideas developed.

The Carroll books used a lovely colour palette with lots of turquoise. They don’t show Alice herself but concentrate on what Alice can see. I loved the picture of the rabbit hole as it was full of little bookcases and cupboards.  

In the Joyce books he saw the illustrations as a bridge of communication to the reader to illuminate the dense text. In his Ulysses pictures he includes a row of small illustrations along the bottom like a praedella on an altar piece. My favourite picture in the show was of Plurabelle from Finnegan’s Wake where he’d drawn her face on the surface of the sea. The detail was stunning.

There was also a wonderful piece where Lord did a drawing a day throughout 2016,  a visual diary. Each picture was about an inch and a half square. He saw them as a relief from a project and a way of bringing the fun back to drawing. There were coat hangers, a fish with legs, a dog poo bag and much more. What a lovely idea!
 
Closes on 4 November 2018

 

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08 September, 2018
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