Londonist is proud to be media partner to the British Academy’s Literature Week.
Aren't these illustrations gorgeous? There's more where they come from, and you can see them up close and personal in a free pop-up exhibition at the British Academy's HQ on Carlton House Terrace during Literature Week in May. Work by five illustrators, from books of fairy and folk tales published by The Folio Society, will be on display before and after all Literature Week events. Here's a bit more about each artist, and you can read what they have to say about their work underneath each image.
- Grahame Baker-Smith is a self-taught illustrator. He began to experiment with digital techniques, including Photoshop, several years ago, and now combines painting and drawing in traditional media with photographed and scanned textures, enjoying the control that digital methods give an artist over every aspect of the image. These illustrations are taken from The Selfish Giant and Other Stories by Oscar Wilde.
- Victo Ngai is an illustrator from Hong Kong, now based in New York. She graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design, and in 2014 was named one of Forbes’s 30 Under 30 in the field of art and style and was honoured with a Gold Medal from the Greater China Illustration Awards. In 2013 she won two Gold Medals in the prestigious Society of Illustrators Annual Competition. Her illustrations are taken from Chinese Fairy Tales & Fantasies.
- Igor Karash is an illustrator and designer based in St Louis, Missouri. He grew up in Baku, Azerbaijan, where he studied architecture, and later graduated from the Kharkov State Academy of Design and Arts in Ukraine with a Masters in Graphic Arts and Illustration. His work has been recognised by numerous prestigious book illustration competitions, including the AOI Awards in the United Kingdom and the American Illustration 32 in the United States. The illustrations in this exhibition are from The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter.
- Caroline Smith studied at Reigate College of Art and moved into illustration during the 1960s. She has created murals for the Pyramids Hotel in Cairo, 12 paintings for the Shangri La Hotel in Hong Kong and 18 paintings for the Mandarin Hotel in Singapore. In 2013 she was shortlisted for the V&A Illustrations Awards for her work on The Folio Society edition of Folktales of the Native American by Dee Brown, from which her exhibits are taken.
- Madalina Andronic is a Romanian artist. She gained a BA in Graphic Design at the University of Fine Arts, Bucharest, and an MA in Illustration at the University of the Arts London, Camberwell College of Arts. Andronic is fascinated by traditional fairy tales and Slavic folklore, always drawn to illustrating these stories in intricate detail and bright colours. These illustrations are from The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald.
This pop-up exhibition is just one of a wide range of events exploring fairy tales and folk tales as part of the British Academy’s Literature Week. In this week celebrating the fantastical and magical, you can hear authors and experts speak about the enduring appeal of fairy tales, learn about rare editions of fairy tales and folk tales at the British Library or listen to live story-telling and get creative with book art at the British Academy’s ‘other worlds... after dark’ Late Night.
The British Academy’s Literature Week runs 11-17 May. All events are free. To explore the programme and register visit the British Academy’s website. You can also follow #LiteratureWeek on Twitter for updates from @britac_news. All books are available at www.foliosociety.com.