James Broom-Lynne

{{Infobox artist

| honorific_prefix =

| name = James Broom-Lynne

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| birth_name = James William Broom

| birth_date = {{birth date|1916|10|31|df=y}}

| birth_place = Islington, London, England

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| death_date = {{death date and age|1995|12|1|1916|10|31|df=y}}

| death_place = Suffolk, England

| resting_place = St. Mary's Church, East Bergholt, Suffolk

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| nationality = British

| education =

| alma_mater = {{ubl|St. Martin's School of Art|}}

| known_for = Playwright, Author, Illustrator

| notable_works = The Trigon

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| spouse = Catherine Joan Redmore (m. 1948)

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| children = Four

| parents =

| father = James William Broom

| mother = Esther Slaughter

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| website = {{URL|https://www.broom-lynne.com/Home.htm}}

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James William Broom-Lynne (31 October 1916 – 1 December 1995) was an English artist-designer, novelist (sometimes under the pseudonym of James Quartermain) and playwright who was notable for his illustrations for book jackets.{{Cite book |last1=Horne |first1=Alan |title=The Dictionary of 20th Century British Book Illustrators |publisher=Antique Collectors' Club |year=1994 |oclc=848940139}}

Life

Islington-born Broom-Lynne was the son of James William Broom, a master bookbinder and Esther (née Slaughter).{{Cite web|title=Suffolk Artists - BROOM-LYNNE, James|url=https://suffolkartists.co.uk/index.cgi?choice=painter&pid=4658|access-date=2021-10-22|website=suffolkartists.co.uk}}{{Cite web|title=James Broom-Lynne|url=https://www.broom-lynne.com/biog.htm|access-date=2021-10-22|website=www.broom-lynne.com}} As a child he attended Eden Grove and St. Aloysius schools, later going on to Saint Martin's Schools of Art. In 1948 he married Catherine Joan Redmore with whom he had two daughters (Victoria and Kate) and one son (Luke).{{Cite web |title=Contemporary dramatists; : Vinson, James, 1933- : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive |url=https://archive.org/details/contemporarydram00vins/page/490/mode/2up?q=broom&view=theater |access-date=4 March 2023 |website=Archive.org}}{{Cite book |last=Vinson |first=James |url=http://archive.org/details/contemporarydram00vins |title=Contemporary dramatists; |publisher=London, St. James Press; New York, St. Martin's Press |others=Internet Archive |year=1973 |isbn=978-0-900997-17-4 |pages=491–492 |oclc=231964348}} He also had one previous daughter, Gale (b.1940) with Joan Mary Murray (later the mother of novelist Lisa St Aubin de Terán).

Upon his death in 1995 he was cremated and his ashes laid to rest in the graveyard of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, in the village of East Bergholt, Suffolk, UK, where he and his wife Catherine had lived for over 40 years.{{Cite web |title=James Broom-Lynne :: HE Bates |url=https://hebates.com/about/james-broom-lynne |access-date=2023-03-11 |website=hebates.com}}

Surname and pseudonym

It not known why or when James Broom choose to append Lynne to his birth name. It may have simply been to distinguish himself from his father with whom he shared an identical name. Although he signed his artwork and illustrations without the hyphen, official records show the correct form as a hyphenated surname. As a novelist he chose the pseudonym of James Quartermain for books published in the American market. This pseudonym is thought to have been derived from his grandmother's surname, Quarterman.

Career

Broom-Lynne learnt his craft at St. Martin's School of Art. He was prolific as a book illustrator, with over 200 dustcovers to his name, particularly for the publishing houses of Heinemann, Macdonald and Michael Joseph. He supplied cover artwork for, amongst others, Anthony Powell, Henry Williamson and H. E. Bates, with whom he collaborated on numerous works including the Larkin family series of novels, The Cruise of the Breadwinner and Love for Lydia.

Of Broom-Lynne's series of dust jackets for Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time Powell's biographer, Hilary Spurling, observed, that Broom-Lynne produced "a series of bold, grainy, instantly recognizable dust jackets that made Music of Time look quite unlike other novels."Spurling, Hilary (2017) Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time. Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Books, p.396.

During World War II Broom-Lynne served as a warden with the Civil Defence Service in Westminster (1940–1945).{{Cite news |last=Moorhouse |first=Geoffrey |date=3 April 1967 |title=Getting inside the jacket |pages=5 |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.co.uk |access-date=20 March 2022 |issn=0261-3077}} It was at this time that he may have first exhibited his work to the general public. Both The West London Press and Chelsea News and The Hampstead News and Golders Green Gazette record artworks credited to Broom-Lynne in exhibitions of civil defence artists in 1941 and 1942 respectively.{{Cite news |date=21 November 1941 |title=Civil Defence Artists |pages=4 |work=The West London Press and Chelsea News |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000973/19411121/068/0004?browse=False |access-date=11 March 2023}}{{Cite news |date=15 January 1942 |title=Civil Defence Artists - The War on canvas |pages=3 |work=The Hampstead News and Golders Green Gazette |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0004648/19420115/034/0003?browse=False |access-date=11 March 2023}}

class="wikitable"

!Year

!Exhibition

!Artwork

!Notes

1941

|2nd national exhibition of civil defence artists

|Portrait of senior warden C. Taylor

|at the Cooling Galleries, 92 New Bond Street, London.

1942

|London exhibition of civil defence artists

|"Mary"

|address listed as The Studio, 4 Keats Grove, London

His post-war career spanned both freelance and permanent roles.

He created the book jackets for the first editions of all twelve novels in the sequence A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell."Archive Addition" (2015). Anthony Powell Society Newsletter 59 (summer): 21.

William Larkins Studio, London, England, art director, 1960–1961
Service Advertising, London, storyboard director, 1962–1966
Macdonald & Co. (publishers), London, art editor, 1966–1969
Art school lecturer in London, 1970–1972
Art school lecturer, Ipswich School of Art, 1972–1981

In 1959 he provided the illustrations for a front cover of Punch Magazine.{{Cite web|title=PNCH-1959-0204-00000.tif {{!}} PUNCH Magazine Cartoon Archive|url=https://www.punch.co.uk/gallery-image/PUNCH-1950s-Front-Cover-Cartoons/G0000stpziXFygEM/I00008tgMJrnjfdc/C000066oZEvrNB5E|access-date=2021-10-26|website=www.punch.co.uk}} On the occasion of its independence from the UK in 1981, he was commissioned to design the interior pages of the passport of Belize{{Cite web|title=James Broom-Lynne|url=https://www.broom-lynne.com/belize.htm|access-date=2021-10-22|website=www.broom-lynne.com}}

It was in 1960 that he took his first foray into commercial writing when he entered a competition run by The Observer to write an hypothetical broadcast script. His entry titled "Dixon in Disgrace" won first prize.{{Cite news |last=Broom-Lynne |first=J. W. |date=20 March 1960 |title=Dixon in Disgrace |pages=10 |work=The Observer |url=https://www.theguardian.com/observer |access-date=20 March 2022 |issn=0029-7712}} This was followed by a number of plays including The Trigon in 1962, which received mixed reviews although the theatre critics in The New Statesman,{{Cite journal |last=Gellert |first=Roger |date=4 January 1963 |title=Foursomes |url=https://www.newstatesman.com/uk |journal=The New Statesman |volume=65 |pages=650 |issn=0028-6842 |access-date=20 March 2022}} The New York Post{{Cite news |last=Watts jr. |first=Richard |date=11 October 1965 |title=Two on the Aisle |work=The New York Post |url=https://nypost.com |access-date=20 March 2022}} and Newsday{{Cite news |last=Frymer |first=Murry |date=11 October 1965 |title='The Trigon' is taut theatre |pages=3c |work=Newsday |url=https://www.newsday.com |access-date=31 March 2022 |issn=0278-5587}} were positive. By 1967 Broom-Lynne had penned his last play and shifted focus onto writing novels.

Bibliography

= Book Jackets =

class="wikitable"

!Year

!Author

!Title

!Publisher

1945

|George Speaight

|Juvenile Drama

|MacDonald

1946

James Broom-Lynne

Life

Surname and pseudonym

Career

Bibliography

= Book Jackets =

= Illustrations =

= Plays =

= Novels =

Sources

References

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