Cliff Wright (Newhaven, 24 October 1963 [1] ) is an artist, book illustrator and advertising artist.
He has illustrated numerous books, specializing in illustrations of animals and children's books, most notably the second and third books in the Harry Potter series - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - and The Wind in the Willows .
He has also been an artist in advertising campaigns for numerous large organizations and corporations - including Greenpeace and IKEA. He has illustrated the Puppy series of board books by Gerald Durrell, commissioned by the Beanie Baby manufacturer Andrex. He has designed numerous posters and cards and is noted for his illustrations of bears and badgers for children.
Wright is an active campaigner for animal rights with International Animal Rescue and has participated in numerous book signings and auctions to raise money to help the dancing bears of India.
Wright was born in Newhaven, [1] England in 1963. He graduated from the Brighton College of Art in 1986. [1] Wright developed wildlife-based watercolours and children's book ideas in the early phase of his career. In 1989, he published a self-written and illustrated picture book for children titled When the World Sleeps (Hutchinson). This was runner-up in the Mother Goose Award competition, 1989-1990. He followed this up by two more highly successful illustration projects - "Crumbs!" (Hutchinson, 1990) and The Tanglewood Troll (Gollancz, 1993).
Bloomsbury approached Cliff Wright for illustrating the British first-edition cover for the second Harry Potter book. The cover illustration for the first book was drawn by Thomas Taylor, a young artist out of college. The popularity of the first book prompted Bloomsbury to select a more experienced illustrator, and hence Cliff Wright was chosen. Wright was the obvious choice for the cover illustrator of the third Harry Potter book as well.
Wright was the first to illustrate the following Harry Potter concepts and characters:
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998):
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999):
Wright retains the rights to the illustrations. He refused to illustrate the fourth Harry Potter book after Bloomsbury lost his original front and back cover artwork for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The huge black market of the Harry Potter fandom has been rumoured to be the cause of the disappearance. He also sued Bloomsbury for offering insufficient compensation.
The original artwork for the second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, went on auction at Christie's in 2001 but was unsuccessful at meeting the reserve price of £30,000. The work has since been acquired by investor Luke Heron on behalf of illustration investment company Storyboard Assets Plc for an undisclosed sum. [2] The original art for the first book raised £85,000 at auction.
Cliff Wright conducts an innovative drawing workshop annually, titled the Art of Seeing. Wright has illustrated numerous books for the publishing houses of Ladybird Books and Oxford University Press, in the 1990s and 2000s. He has also written and illustrated the "Little Bear" series of board books from Templar Publishing.
He also illustrated the cover of the fantasy novel I Ribelli dell'Alianco (2023) by the italian author Marina Lenti.
William Heath Robinson was an English cartoonist, illustrator and artist who drew whimsically elaborate machines to achieve simple objectives.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a 2001 guide book written by British author J. K. Rowling about the magical creatures in the Harry Potter universe. The original version, illustrated by the author herself, purports to be Harry Potter's copy of the textbook of the same name mentioned in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the first novel of the Harry Potter series. It includes several notes inside it supposedly handwritten by Harry, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger, detailing their own experiences with some of the beasts described, and including inside jokes relating to the original series.
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Mary GrandPré is an American illustrator best known for her cover and chapter illustrations of the Harry Potter books in their U.S. editions published by Scholastic. She received a Caldecott Honor in 2015 for illustrating Barb Rosenstock's The Noisy Paint Box: The Colors and Sounds of Kandinsky's Abstract Art. GrandPré, who creates her artwork with paint and pastels, has illustrated more than twenty books and has appeared in gallery exhibitions and periodicals such as The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, and The Wall Street Journal.
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John Henry "Harry" Wingfield was an English illustrator, best known for his drawings that illustrated the Ladybird Books Key Words Reading Scheme in the 1960s through to the 1980s, which sold over 80 million copies worldwide.
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Edward Mortelmans (1915–2008) was an English artist and illustrator. His primary modes of expression were watercolor and black and white line drawings. He is best known for illustrating some books by Gerald Durrell, and covers for books by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Cliff Nielsen is an American book illustrator and comic book artist. The Internet Speculative Fiction Database credits him with cover art for about 500 book and magazine covers published since 1994 Nielsen is best known for his work on projects such as Star Wars, The X-Files, Chronicles of Narnia among many projects including advertising campaigns, designs, and magazines. His illustrations have been recognized for their excellence by the Society of Illustrators, Print, and Spectrum among others. Feature articles focusing on his work appear in design publications and fanzine magazines. Nielsen has been an international speaker on digital art and has served as a judge for the Society of Illustrators and a variety of professional illustration award programs. He lives in Los Angeles, California.
Joan Kiddell-Monroe (1908–1972) was a British writer and illustrator of children's books, particularly notable for her folk-tale illustrations.
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Septimus Edwin Scott (1879–1965), who signed his name Sep E. Scott, was a British painter, illustrator and comics artist.
Toy books were illustrated children's books that became popular in England's Victorian era. The earliest toy books were typically paperbound, with six illustrated pages and sold for sixpence; larger and more elaborate editions became popular later in the century. In the mid-19th century picture books began to be made for children, with illustrations dominating the text rather than supplementing the text.
Thomas Henry Taylor is an English children's writer and illustrator. He painted the cover art for the first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
Robert Norton Ayton (1915–1985) was a British comics artist and illustrator who worked for the Eagle and Ladybird Books.
Roger Hall was a British artist who began his career painting publicity images for front of house displays in cinemas but later became a noted book illustrator and created the first depiction of James Bond on a book cover.
Clare Melinsky is an artist, printmaker, and illustrator who lives in Scotland. She is particularly known for her linocut illustrations.
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