Pictures by JRRT vs. Art of LOTR?

St. Troy wrote:
Both Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien and The Art of The Lord of The Rings contain JRRT's artwork for LOTR. How do they compare to each other? Does one have more images? Any quality issues?

These are very different books, Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien was the first book to come out, apart from yearly calendars, that contained Tolkien's illustrations, but has been very much superseded by Scull & Hammond's excellent three books on Tolkien's illustrations, J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator, The Art of the Hobbit and The Art of the Lord of Rings.

To answer your question on images, a lot more in these books and a much more comprehensive description about the images than is in Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien, and on quality, all four are very good.

From a Tolkien as an illustrator point of view, I would go for Scull & Hammond's books first, but as a collector then all four of them.

Thanks!

Could you please tell me the horizontal and vertical size of a page in the second (1992) edition of ‘Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien’ (preferably in mm)?

295mmx310mm

Many thanks, Trotter!

I took part in the proofreading of a translation of the Pictures, and I also hope to participate in the translation of Art of LotR, so I agree with your words on the topic. Nevertheless, from the publisher’s point of you, it is reasonable to issue the Pictures first, for the general audience, for whom the best art with the minimal information would be sufficient; and then the books with the drafts, rough sketches and etc would be provided for the fans.