John Vernon Lord

John Vernon Lord is an illustrator, author and teacher. He is widely recognized for his illustrations of various texts such as Aesop's Fables, The Nonsense Verse of Edward Lear; and the Folio Society's Myths and Legends of the British Isles. He has also illustrated classics of English literature, including the works of Lewis Carroll and James Joyce.

Lord has written and illustrated several books for children, which have been published and translated into multiple languages. His book The Giant Jam Sandwich has been in print since 1972.

He was head of various departments, including the Head of the School of Design, at Brighton Art School, Polytechnic and University. He is now Professor Emeritus at the University of Brighton where he was Professor of Illustration 1986-99. An Honorary D.Litt. was conferred upon him by the University of Brighton in 2000. He was the chair of the Graphic Design Board of the Council for National Academic Awards 1981-84.

Background and education

John Vernon Lord was born in 1939 in Glossop, Derbyshire. He is the son of a baker and a ship's hairdresser. He attended Salford School of Art, now the University of Salford in Lancashire (1956–60); and completed his formal education at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London, where he was taught by the modernist writer and artist Mervyn Peake and the surrealist Cecil Collins, amongst others. In his 2007 retrospective, Drawing Upon Drawing he states that, "During (his) student days, in the late 1950s the work of Gerard Hoffnung, André François, Ronald Searle and Saul Steinberg...and, to a certain extent..the work of Paul Klee" as was "an abiding interest" in Victorian steel engraving. and Reynard the Fox and so began a love affair with narrative illustration. During the 1970s, while a teacher at Brighton, he wrote The Giant Jam Sandwich, The Runaway Roller Skate and Mr Mead and his Garden, and illustrated Conrad Aiken's Who's Zoo Lord produced several illustrations for Punch and the Radio Times.

In 1986, he was appointed Professor of Illustration at University of Brighton and his inaugural lecture Illustrating Lear's Nonsense was published a few years later.

Gallery

Selected publications as an illustrator 1965 A Visit to Bedsyde Manor, by Stanley Penn, Guinness Publications. 1968 Adventures of Jabotí on the Amazon, by Lena F. Hurlong, Abelard-Schuman. 1969 Reynard the Fox, by Roy Brown, Abelard-Schuman. 1970 A Natural History of Man, by J.K. Brierley, Heinemann. 1970 The Truck on the Track, by Janet Burroway, Jonathan Cape. 1970 Dinosaurs Don't Die, by Ann Coates, Longman. 1972 The Adventures of Brer Rabbit, after Joel Chandler Harris, BBC Jackanory. 1975 Sword at Sunset, by Rosemary Sutcliff, (Edito-Service), Geneva. 1977 Who's Zoo, poems by Conrad Aiken, Jonathan Cape. 1984 The Nonsense Verse of Edward Lear, Jonathan Cape. 1989 The Song that Sings the Bird, poems chosen by Ruth Craft and illustrated by JVL, Collins. 1989 Aesop's Fables, verses by James Michie, Jonathan Cape. 1994 The Squirrel and the Crow, by Wendy Cope, 'Prospero Poets' series for the Clarion Press. 1995 King Arthur's Knights, by Henry Gilbert, Macmillan. 1998 Myths and Legends of the British Isles, edited by Richard Barber, The Folio Society. 2002 Icelandic Sagas, Volume 2, translated by Magnus Magnusson, The Folio Society. 2005 Epics of the Middle Ages, edited by Richard Barber, The Folio Society. 2006 The Hunting of the Snark, by Lewis Carroll, Artists' Choice Editions, The Foundry, Church Hanborough. 2009 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll, Artists' Choice Editions. 2011 Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, by Lewis Carroll, Artists' Choice Editions 2014 Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce, The Folio Society 2017 Ulysses, by James Joyce, The Folio Society 2020 Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung: A Companion, English translation by Stewart Spencer, The Folio Society

Books 1972, The Giant Jam Sandwich, set to verse by Janet Burroway, Jonathan Cape. 1973, The Runaway Roller Skate, Jonathan Cape. 1974, Mr Mead and his Garden, Jonathan Cape. 1979, Miserable Aunt Bertha, set to verse by Fay Maschler, Jonathan Cape. 1986, The Doodles and Diaries of John Vernon Lord, Camberwell Press. 2007, Drawing Upon Drawing: 50 Years of Illustrating, University of Brighton. 2009, John's Journal Jottings, Inky Parrott Press. 2014, Drawn to Drawing, by John Vernon Lord, Nobrow Press 2018, A Drawing a Day in 2016, by John Vernon Lord, with 366 illustrations by John Vernon Lord, Inky Parrott Press, Oxford, 2018 2018 John Vernon Lord: Illustrating Carroll and Joyce, catalogue to accompany an exhibition with a foreword by Chris Riddell and an introduction with 46 illustrations by JVL, The House of Illustration, London, 2018. 2019 John Lord’s Notebooks: DCC:451, a Keepsake for the Double Crown Club, Including 36 pages of notebook images by John Vernon Lord, Coventry and Warwickshire Print Ltd, December 2019. 2023 Random Notes about Doodling, Sketching, Drawing and Illustrating, by John Vernon Lord, with 6 short essays and many pages from sketchbooks and notebooks. Introduction by Brian Sibley, Studio 245, Unseen Sketchbooks, 2023.

Awards In 1985 his The Nonsense Verse of Edward Lear won the ‘Redwood Burn Award’ sponsored by the NBL and Publishers’ Association; and it also won the ‘General Selectors’ Award’ by the British Federation of Master Printers. In 1990 his illustrations for Aesop’s Fables won the overall prize in the ‘V&A/W.H Smith Illustration Awards’. In 2018 his illustrations for Ulysses won the ‘V&A Illustration Award for Book Illustration’ and the winner of the ‘2018 Moira Gemmill Illustrator of the Year Prize’.