Ted Nasmith

Ted Nasmith is a Canadian artist, illustrator and architectural renderer. He is best known as an illustrator of J. R. R. Tolkien's works — The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion.

Nasmith was born in the mid-1950s in Goderich, Ontario, Canada. As the son of a Royal Canadian Air Force officer, Nasmith's childhood was characterized by a series of moves, chiefly when his father was stationed in eastern France when Ted was 2 years old, until the family returned to Ontario 3 years later. By the time Nasmith became a teenager, they had settled in Don Mills, a suburb of Toronto (he now resides in nearby Newmarket.)

Nasmith's public school guidance counselor encouraged him to enter a high school which featured a 4-year commercial art program. During his third year of high school, however, Nasmith's sister introduced him to The Lord of the Rings, and it quickly became a huge inspiration and focus in his life. Nasmith writes:

"It opened up in me a dormant love of lost and misty times, myth and legend. Not since childhood had I felt such a sense of 'home', unaware of the effects the intervening years had had in displacing it. I began immediately to draw scenes inspired by this magical, nostalgic realm, becoming absorbed for many hours at a time." (Nasmith 2002)

In 1972, Nasmith mailed photographs of some of his paintings to J. R. R. Tolkien. Tolkien responded by letter a few weeks later, both praising the work and making the comment that the rendition of Bilbo Baggins seemed a little too childlike. Still a teenager at the time, this early feedback from Tolkien encouraged Nasmith to strive for a more literal interpretation of Tolkien's works.

After graduation, Nasmith aspired to follow in the footsteps of automotive illustrator Art Fitzpatrick. However, since photography was replacing illustration in the business of car advertising, he instead found employment as an architectural renderer, showing a particular flair for the intense realism such illustrations often demand.

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