Happy Birthday to Pauline Baynes!
(September 9, 1922 – August 1, 2008)
English artist and illustrator Pauline Baynes was born in Hove, Sussex, England on September 9th. She was a prolific book illustrator and her accomplishments include many scenes from stories by both J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.
Baynes worked directly with Tolkien to create this fantastically detailed map of Middle Earth:
According to her obituary, Tolkien is said to have remarked “There they are, there they are” when viewing a poster Baynes drew of Frodo and Bilbo.
I learned a lot about Pauline Baynes through this recording of Jay Johnstone’s presentation “Pauline Diana Baynes: an artist’s inspiration” from the recent Tolkien 2019 conference.
A talented artist in his own right, Johnstone has a collection of Tolkien-inspired artwork as well. I especially like his oil sketches of the dwarves from the Hobbit movies.
Oh, I had never seen that detailed version of the map until now! I knew right away it was by the same artist that did the Narnia map. I love her work, thanks for the information about her.
It’s a really impressive map – I’ll have to look at her Narnia one again. Baynes was very talented!
Loved learning about Pauline Baynes and that map is amazing. Thanks for sharing!
I especially like how she included all the characters around it.