Josh Kirby

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Ronald William "Josh" Kirby (born November 27, 1928 in Waterloo , Lancashire , † October 23, 2001 in Shelfanger near Diss , Norfolk ) was a British draftsman and artist, who mainly through his book cover illustrations for Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels got known.

Life

Kirby studied at the Liverpool City School of Art . After graduating, he first worked on film posters for a London art studio, but after a few years he became self-employed as a freelance artist, mainly drawing book cover illustrations of all kinds.

He married in the 1960s and moved to Norfolk to a 400 year old country rectory. In the following years he presented numerous exhibitions in London and even Berlin . Famous works such as film posters for The Return of the Jedi Knights , Krull , Beastmaster and the well-known "copy" of Pieter Brueghel's Tower of Babel for the Monty Python film The Life of Brian were created .

He first came into contact with Terry Pratchett in the late 1980s when the British book publisher Corgi commissioned him to design a cover for The Colors of Magic . This was the beginning of the highly successful collaboration with Pratchett, from which the quote comes: “ I only invented the Discworld. Josh created it. ”(German:“ I just invented the Discworld. Josh created it. ”) Josh Kirby drew a total of 25 book covers for the Discworld series and other books by Pratchett, thus decisively shaping the image that readers had of Discworld.

“I am a painter. That's what I do. I paint. "

"I am an artist. This is what i do I paint."

- Josh Kirby's most famous quote

In 1996 he received the British Fantasy Award for best artist.

After Josh Kirby's death, Paul Kidby continued to work on the book covers for Pratchett's novels.

Own artbooks and books

  • The Josh Kirby Discworld Portfolio , Paperback, 2001, ISBN 1-85585-895-9
    This large-format art book with 29 × 42 cm actually offers enough space for Kirby's detailed drawings for 28 full-page illustrations, which mainly show book covers for Terry Pratchett's books.
  • In the Garden of Unearthly Delights: The Paintings of Josh Kirby , Paperback, 1991, ISBN 1-85028-154-8
    Also large-format art book, also focusing on Discworld themes.
  • A Cosmic Cornucopia , Taschenbuch, 1999, ISBN 1-85585-731-6
    Although also produced in a large format and with a large, good selection of Kirby's works, each with short anecdotes, this artbook does not offer much space for the individual works , sometimes only a quarter of a page, which often means that they don't really come into their own. In addition to many Discworld themes, it also includes other works by Kirby, such as a portrait of Hitchcock , book covers for Ray Bradbury , Edgar Rice Burroughs and the like. a.
    Tom Holt wrote a foreword for this book.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b The L-Space Web: Josh Kirby (1928-2001) .
personal data
SURNAME Kirby, Josh
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kirby, Ronald William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British draftsman and artist
DATE OF BIRTH November 27, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Waterloo , Lancashire
DATE OF DEATH October 23, 2001
Place of death Shelfanger at Diss , Norfolk