Friday’s Library snapshot …

I was given a gift this week; always a delight but this was a book and particularly special; it is a catalogue of Eric Fraser’s work.  I was surprised at the magnitude and diversity of his work as I only ‘knew’ him through the Radio Times, with his programme illustrations and advertisements in the national papers.  

He was an illustrator first and foremost but he also designed trademarks, exhibition murals, coins, stamps, church windows, pub signs, posters and packaging.  He worked with pen, brush and a scraper.  He was a draughtsman with a strong sense of line, a painter with a strong sense of colour, an experimenter in combinations of line with colour washes and in new twists of an ‘old’ medium like lino-cut.

Eric George Fraser (1902-1983) born in London where lived all his life.  Fraser illustrated scenes from mythology, such as Beowulf fighting a dragon.  With pen and ink he drew legendary and several works of Shakespeare. In the 1960s  he designed the the  jackets for the Everyman’s Library series.  He also illustrated J.R.R. Tolkien’s books, such as the Folio Society edition of Lord of the Rings in 1977.

So I will really enjoy dipping into my gift and seeking out some ‘original’ works we may have in the library. I found one or two …