Art Exhibition (Pauline Baynes)

I went to this exhibition at the weekend (12th January). The exhibition has been extended now to February 8th, since they have had a lot of visitors since Christmas. I would very much recommend anyone who get to Farnham to go and see it. The exhibition is not huge, covering the upstairs landing of Farnham Museum and a further single room, but very worthwhile.
While there were copies of many of the books that she illustrated (including LOTR and the Narnia series) the highlights of the exhibition included:
Her final painting from the Slade School of Art; the Kate Greenaway medal, several paintings from an unpublished work, Osric the Owl and other original work including one of the dragon from Farmer Giles of Ham.
However, the most unexpected item was a painting by her sister Angela. Apparently when Pauline was commissioned to produce the wraparound Lord of the Rings cover in the early 1960s, she was rather lacking in inspiration as she had not read the book. Her sister who had also been to Slade (and was also a very fine artist in her own right) painted a work entitled 'The Lord of the Rings' with scenes from the book to act as inspiration for her. Whether this work had much direct influence is debatable, but it was certainly fascinating to see.
The museum shop has a couple of prints for purchase, where they were able to reach agreement with the copyright holder. These are two beautiful snow scenes, one a Huntley and Palmers biscuits advert; the other a front cover for the Tatler magazine (1952).
I shall be going again before it closes. Many of the items on show are, I believe, owned locally and privately and so may never be seen again!