A self-decscribed British blogger, book-collector, book-dealer, publisher and writer featured childrens’ author Rosemary Sutcliff a number of times on his blog, in one instance writing of the illustrations in the 1955 novel Outcast (OUP, 1955).
(The illustrator) Richard Pitt Kennedy … worked as a publisher’s apprentice at the Hogarth Press under Virginia and Leonard Woolf. He was a prolific illustrator and from what I can see, these illustrations for Sutcliff, which look like crayon on textured board are somewhat unusual for a man whose main illustration work was done in pen and ink wash. He was a great admirer of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, one of the founders of the Vorticist movement; there is little sign of that in these images. But he was prolific and clearly, someone who illustrates such a quantity of material is going to demonstrate a certain variety over time.
If I recall correctly, Richard Kennedy also illustrated “Simon”, as well as Stephanie Plowman’s “Sixteen Sail in Aboukir Bay” (Battle of the Nile), and the cover for the Peacock paperback of Plowman’s Boudica story “To Spare the Conquered” (which makes an interesting read back-to-back with “Song for a Dark Queen”).
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