 | |
| Person | |
| Mary Fairburn | |
|---|---|
| Biographical Information | |
| Born | 13 June 1933 |
| Education | Winchester School of Art and the Institute of Education |
| Occupation | Illustrator |
| Gallery | Images of Mary Fairburn |
Mary Fairburn (13 June 1933) is an English artist and musician, best known for her illustrations for The Lord of the Rings. Her illustrations, unknown until 2012, were published as a body by HarperCollins in the Official Tolkien Calendar 2015.
History
Early life
Born in London, Fairburn was educated at St. Swinthun's School for Girls and later studied at the Winchester School of Art and the Institute of Education in London. In the mid-1950s, Fairburn taught art at St. Bonaventure's Boys' School Forest Gate and, in 1958, took a job at Masjid-i-Sulieman, Iran, teaching art and music to the children of the employees of an American oil company.[1]
Illustrations of Tolkien's works
After reading the Lord of the Rings for the first time, Fairburn a created suite of pictures based on the novel and sent them to Tolkien in May of 1968. He wrote back in strongly approving terms.
In a subsequent letter, he wrote:
After seeing your specimens I am beginning to change my mind [that is, about not having The Lord of the Rings illustrated], and I think that an illustrated edition might be a good thing.[2]
However, soon after this, Tolkien broke his leg in a fall, and was hospitalised; Fairburn was in difficult financial circumstances and needed to urgently pursue more immediately rewarding work, and the Tolkien family home in Oxford was packed up for a move to the English south coast. As a result of these disruptions the negotiations between the writer and artist went no further.[3]
Notable letters
- Letter to Mary Fairburn (May 1968)
- Letter to Mary Fairburn (4 September 1968)
- Letter to Mary Fairburn (10 October 1968)
- Letter to Mary Fairburn (4 November 1968)
- ↑ Brian J. Robb, Paul Simpson Middle-earth Envisioned: The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings: On Screen, On Stage, and Beyond, p. 213
- ↑ Letter to Mary Fairburn (May 1968)
- ↑ Paul Tankard, Akin to my own Inspiration: Mary Fairburn and the Art of Middle-earth". Tolkien Studies, 2017