John Vernon Lord

John Vernon Lord is an illustrator, author and teacher. He has illustrated texts including Aesop's Fables,The Nonsense Verse of Edward Lear; the Folio Society's Myths and Legends of the British Isles, and Epics of the Middle Ages. In addition, he has illustrated many classics of children's literature including Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark".

Lord has written and illustrated several children's books, which have been published and translated into several languages. His book The Giant Jam Sandwich has been in print for over thirty years.

As a university professor, John Vernon Lord has lectured on the art of illustration for over 40 years.

John Vernon Lord was born in Glossop, Derbyshire in 1939. He was the son of a baker and a ship's hairdresser. He attended Salford School of Art, now the University of Salford in Lancashire (1956–60); and completed his formal education at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London, where he was taught by the modernist writer and artist Mervyn Peake and the surrealist Cecil Collins, amongst others. In his recent retrospective, Drawing Upon Drawing he states that,

"During (his) student days, in the late 1950s the work of Gerard Hoffnung, André François, Ronald Searle and Saul Steinberg...and, to a certain extent..the work of Paul Klee"

were also influential, as was "an abiding interest" in Victorian steel engraving.

In 1961, Lord began work as a freelance illustrator, joining the agents Saxon Artists, in New Oxford Street, London. This required him to draw on demand, day in and out, often for long hours. He describes the difference between life as an art student and life as a professional illustrator in the following terms:

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