Alan Lee (illustrator)

{{short description|Illustrator and movie conceptual designer (born 1947)}}

{{Infobox artist

| name = Alan Lee

| image = Alan Lee.jpg

| image_size =

| caption = Lee in 2016

| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1947|8|20|df=y}}

| birth_place = Middlesex, England

| death_date =

| death_place =

| awards = {{awards |Chesley Award |1989, 1998 }} {{awards |Kate Greenaway Medal |1993 }} {{awards |World Fantasy Award |1998 }} {{awards |Academy Award |2004 }}

| education = Ealing School of Art

| known_for = Illustration, painting, conceptual design

|signature= Alan Lee Signature.jpg

}}

Alan Lee (born 20 August 1947) is an English book illustrator and film conceptual designer. He is best known for his artwork inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novels, and for his work on the concept design of Peter Jackson's film adaptations of Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film series.

Early life and education

Alan Lee was born in Middlesex, England, and studied at the Ealing School of Art.Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20001101043141/http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/lee.htm "Alan Lee Biography"]}}.

Career

=Illustration=

== Tolkien ==

Lee has illustrated dozens of fantasy books, including some non-fiction, and many more book covers.

Among the numerous works by J. R. R. Tolkien that he has illustrated are the 1992 centenary edition of The Lord of the Rings, a 1999 edition of The Hobbit, the 2007 The Children of Húrin, the 2017 Beren and Lúthien, the 2018 The Fall of Gondolin, and the 2022 The Fall of Númenor. He has given numerous conferences, interviews and masterclasses, such as the one recorded at the Bibliothèque nationale de France{{cite web |title="Autour de l'exposition 'Tolkien: voyage en Terre du Milieu: Alan Lee illustrer Tolkien" |language=French |trans-title=Around the Exhibition 'Tolkien: Voyage in Middle-earth: Alan Lee Illustrates Tolkien' |publisher=Bibliothèque nationale de France |date=2020 |format=audio |url=https://www.bnf.fr/fr/agenda/autour-de-lexposition-tolkien-voyage-en-terre-du-milieu-alan-lee-illustrer-tolkien |access-date=26 July 2024}} in 2020, during the exhibition "Tolkien : voyage en Terre du Milieu".

File:Holy Grail tapestry The Failure of Sir Gawaine.jpg|Velten suggests that Lee followed Tolkien's liking of Morris by adopting something of his visual style. Morris's tapestry The Failure of Sir Gawaine illustrated.{{sfn|Velten|2024|pp=186–190}}

File:Morris visual influence on Tolkien and beyond.svg|Morris's visual influence on Tolkien and beyond, via Lee's illustrations and Peter Jackson's films{{sfn|Velten|2024|pp=186–190}}

File:Lady Eowyn bids farewell to Aragorn, by Alan Lee.jpg's visual style, and in turn transmitting that style to Jackson and the aesthetic of the fantasy-viewing public.{{sfn|Velten|2024|pp=186–190}}]]

Hans Velten writes that Lee was influenced by William Morris's graphic approach. He suggests that Lee was comfortable with Tolkien's acceptance of Morris, and accordingly made his Middle-earth illustrations more like Morris's style. In Velten's view, Lee's work, especially as concept artist on Peter Jackson's 2001–2003 The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, has influenced the audience's "collective imagination" of how places and people should look in Middle-earth.{{cite book |last=Velten |first=Hans Rudolf |chapter=William Morris's Medievalist Visual Aesthetics and its Persistence in Fantasy |title=Fantasy Aesthetics: Visualizing Myth and Middle Ages, 1880–2020 |volume=4 |series=The Middle Ages and Popular Culture |year=2024 |url=https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/92608/9783839470589.pdf?sequence=1#page=176 |isbn=978-3-8376-7058-5 |doi=10.14361/9783839470589 |pages=186–190}}

== Other illustrations ==

Non-Tolkien books he has illustrated include Faeries (with Brian Froud), Lavondyss by Robert Holdstock, The Mabinogion (two versions), Castles by David Day, The Mirrorstone by Michael Palin, The Moon's Revenge by Joan Aiken, and Merlin Dreams by Peter Dickinson.{{ISFDB name|3392|Alan Lee}}. Retrieved 15 July 2012.

He has illustrated retellings of classics for young people. Two were Rosemary Sutcliff's versions of the Iliad and the Odyssey—namely, Black Ships Before Troy (Oxford, 1993) and The Wanderings of Odysseus (Frances Lincoln, 1995). Another was Adrian Mitchell's version of Ovid's Metamorphoses—namely, Shapeshifters (Frances Lincoln, 2009).[https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/645769357 "Shapeshifters: tales from Ovid's Metamorphoses"]. WorldCat. Retrieved 28 November 2012.

Lee made cover paintings for the 1983 Penguin edition of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy. He also did the artwork for Alive!, a 2007 CD by the Dutch band Omnia, released during the Castlefest festival. Watercolour painting and pencil sketches are among the media that Lee commonly uses.

= Film =

== Tolkien ==

{{further|Production of The Lord of the Rings film series#Art design}}

File:Orthanc_by_Alan_Lee.jpg illustration of Orthanc was closely followed by the set designers of Peter Jackson's The Two Towers to create a "bigature" of the tower for filming.]]

Lee and John Howe were the lead concept artists of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films between 2000 and 2003.{{IMDb name|id=0496769|name=Alan Lee}} They were recruited by director Guillermo del Toro in 2008 for continuity of design in the subsequent The Hobbit films,{{cite news |title=Guillermo del Toro Chats with TORN About The Hobbit Films! |publisher=TheOneRing.net |date=25 April 2008 |url=http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2008/04/25/28747-guillermo-del-toro-chats-with-torn-about-the-hobbit-films/ |access-date=26 April 2008}} before joining Jackson when he took over the Hobbit films project. Jackson has explainedIn a documentary interview on the extended edition of The Fellowship of the Ring. how he originally recruited the reclusive Lee. By courier to Lee's home in the south of England, he sent two of his previous films, Forgotten Silver and Heavenly Creatures, with a note from himself and Fran Walsh that piqued Lee's interest enough for him to become involved. Lee went on to illustrate and even to help construct many of the scenarios for the movies, including objects and weapons for the actors. For example his illustration of the tower of Orthanc was closely followed by the set designers of The Two Towers to create a "bigature" at 1:35 scale for close-up filming.{{cite book |last=Svitil |first=Torene |title=So You Want to Work in Animation & Special Effects? |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eysHF3iMyMgC&pg=PA75 |year=2007 |publisher=Enslow Publishing |isbn=978-0-7660-2737-4 |pages=75–76}} He made two cameo appearances: in the opening sequence of The Fellowship as one of the nine kings of men who became the Nazgûl; and in The Two Towers as a Rohan soldier in the armoury (over the shoulder of Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn who is talking to Legolas in Elvish).[http://www.fantasiadomain.com/lotrcameo/index_en.html "Cameos and Special Extras in The Lord of The Rings"]. Anonymous.

Two years after completing The Lord of the Rings film series, Lee released a 192-page collection of his concept artwork for the project, The Lord of the Rings Sketchbook (HarperCollins, 2005). Peter Jackson said, "His art captured what I hoped to capture with the films."[http://www.worldcat.org/title/lord-of-the-rings-sketchbook/oclc/60793953?&ht=edition "The lord of the rings sketchbook"] (British edition). He later published The Hobbit Sketchbook (HarperCollins, 2020)) WorldCat. Retrieved 30 November 2012.

== Other films ==

Lee worked as a concept designer on the films Legend, Erik the Viking, King Kong and the television mini-series Merlin. The art book Faeries, produced in collaboration with Brian Froud, was the basis of a 1981 animated feature of the same name.{{cite book |title=Faeries |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P8a0J7byMhIC |last1=Froud |first1=Brian |last2=Lee |first2=Alan |editor=Larkin, David |publisher=Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing |year=1979 |isbn=978-0553346343}}

Books illustrated

Faeries (1978)
Castles (1984)
Brokedown Palace (1986)
The Return of the Shadow (1988) Cover art only (for American editions)
The Treason of Isengard (1989) Cover art only (for American editions)
The War of the Ring (1990) Cover art only (for American editions)
The Lord of the Rings (1991)
The Atlas of Middle-earth (1991) Cover art only
Sauron Defeated (1992) Cover art only (for American editions)
Black Ships Before Troy (1993, by Rosemary Sutcliff)
The Wanderings of Odysseus (1995, by Rosemary Sutcliff)Sutcliff, Rosemary (2010) [https://rosemarysutcliff.net/2010/12/01/alan-lee/ Fantasy illustrator Alan Lee worked with Rosemary Sutcliff]
The Hobbit (1997)
The Children of Húrin (2007)
Tales from the Perilous Realm (2008)
Beren and Lúthien (2017)
The Wanderer and Other Old-English Poems (2018) (Folio Society)
The Fall of Gondolin (2018)
Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth (2020)
The Lord of the Rings (2022) (Folio Society)
The Fall of Númenor (2022)

Awards

For his 1978 book with Brian Froud, Faeries, Lee was runner-up for the fantasy Locus Award, year's best art or illustrated book.

[http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/NomLit157.html#3068 Lee, Alan"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121016201634/http://locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/NomLit157.html |date=2012-10-16 }}. Index of Art Nominees. Locus Index to SF Awards. Retrieved 29 November 2012.

For illustrating Merlin Dreams by Peter Dickinson (1988), he won the annual Chesley Award for Best Interior Illustration and he was a highly commended runner-up for the Greenaway Medal.[http://web.ccsu.edu/library/nadeau/award%20books/KateGreenaway.htm "Kate Greenaway Medal"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140916192441/http://web.ccsu.edu/library/nadeau/award%20books/KateGreenaway.htm |date=2014-09-16}}. 2007(?). Curriculum Lab. Elihu Burritt Library. Central Connecticut State University. Retrieved 30 August 2012.{{efn|There are usually eight books on the Greenaway Medal shortlist. According to CCSU, some runners-up through 2002 were Commended (from 1959) or Highly Commended (from 1974). There were 31 high commendations in 29 years including Lee and two others in 1988.}} He also won the BSFA Award for Best Artwork, for that year's best single new image.

Five years later, he won the Kate Greenaway Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book illustration by a British subject. The book was Black Ships Before Troy by Rosemary Sutcliff, a version of the Trojan War story.[http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/livingarchive/title.php?id=13 (Greenaway Winner 1993)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130129235542/http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/livingarchive/title.php?id=13 |date=2013-01-29 }}. Living Archive: Celebrating the Carnegie and Greenaway Winners. CILIP. Retrieved 15 July 2012.

For the 60th anniversary edition of The Hobbit, Tolkien's 1937 classic, Lee won his second Chesley Award for Interior Illustration (he is a finalist eight times through 2011).{{cite web |url=http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/ChesleyNomList.html |title=Chesley Nominees List |work=The Locus Index to Science Fiction Awards |access-date=7 January 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111104033444/http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/ChesleyNomList.html |archive-date=4 November 2011}}

For that year's work he won the annual World Fantasy Award, Best Artist, at the 1998 World Fantasy Convention.{{cite web|url=http://www.worldfantasy.org/awards/1998.html |title=1998 World Fantasy Award Winners and Nominees |publisher=World Fantasy Convention |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080922005917/http://www.worldfantasy.org/awards/1998.html |archive-date=2008-09-22}}

In 2000, he won the competitive, juried Spectrum Award for fantastic art in the grandmaster category.

[https://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/Spectrum12000.html 2000 Spectrum Awards.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121019015326/http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/Spectrum12000.html |date=2012-10-19}}

Lee, Grant Major and Dan Hennah earned the 2004 Academy Award for Best Art Direction for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, third in the film trilogy.{{cite web |url=http://www.allmovie.com/work/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-return-of-the-king-278981/awards |title=The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King |publisher=AllMovie}}

In 2016 he was awarded the '[https://www.dragon-days.de/preistraeger Schwäbischen Lindwurm]' of the

[https://www.dragon-days.de/2016/alan-lee-bekommt-den-schwaebischen-lindwurm Dragon Days Crossmedia Fantastikfestival Stuttgart].