A fish in a jug and JS Bach

A fish in a jug and JS Bach,

A notebook drawing by John Vernon Lord, 12 September 2013.

Mother Goose programme cover

Mother Goose programme cover, 

drawn and designed by John Vernon Lord, 2007.

(showing Ditchling High Street).

'Beneath the Tree'

'Beneath the Tree'

A pen and ink drawing by John Vernon Lord,  1966.

measuring 7 feet x 3 feet 11 inches or 2.21m x 1.19 m.

A Visit to Stoke

A Visit to Stoke

A diary drawing by John Vernon Lord, 17 March 1983.

Academic Board 1981

Academic Board 1981.

A notebook drawing by John Vernon Lord, 5 March 1981

A bird singing letters and numbers

A bird singing letters and numbers.

A notebook drawing by John Vernon Lord, 1979

Chateau Monbazillac wine label

Chateau Monbazillac wine label.

A notebook collage by John Vernon Lord 1979

Degree or non-degree - indigestion

Degree or non-degree - indigestion.

A notebook drawing by John Vernon Lord, 1979.

Landscape drawing, a ticket, capital expenditure

Landscape drawing, a ticket, capital expenditure.

A notebook drawing by John Vernon Lord, 22 March 1979.

They

They

A notebook drawing by John Vernon Lord, 1978.

When I carried out this spread I was working on the illustrations to The Nonsense Verse of Edward Lear, in which there are characters called 'they' in the limericks. Lear’s characters inhabit a real world as well as a surreal one of Nonsense.  They are subjected to everyday problems and they are endowed with typical human frailties and feelings, and hardly any of them are righteous.  Very few idealised heroes or heroines can be found among Lear’s Nonsense.  There is a pervading sense of the individual having to cope with life’s vicissitudes in a society which is nearly always ready to be critical - especially the inquisitive ‘they’ of the limericks, who form pressure-groups and behave like nosey-parkers, bureaucrats and bores.  George Orwell referred to ‘they’ as ‘the respectable ones, the right-thinking, art-hating majority’.

           

Here is an example, among Lear's limericks, of the Old Person of Bow  -

There was an Old Person of Bow

Whom nobody happened to know;

So they gave him some soap,

And said coldly, ‘We hope

You will go back directly to Bow! 

Many of Lear’s limerick subjects have to endure such insults as this from the ‘gross besetting crowd’.

‘They’ are what Aldous Huxley described as the force of ‘Public Opinion’ which ‘universally abhors

eccentricity’and who are unable to appreciate talent; as can be witnessed here, for it is ‘they’ again who rebuke the Old Man of Melrose for merely walking on the tips of his toes.

Train tickets

Train tickets

Notebook drawings (in case I lost them!) by John Vernon Lord, 1978/79.

Man on a roller skate

Man on a roller skate

A notebook drawing by John Vernon Lord, 1978.

A pianist

A pianist

A notebook drawing by John Vernon Lord, 1976.

A fish swallows a man's hand

A fish swallows a man's hand

A notebook drawing by John Vernon Lord, September 1976.

A man balancing two balls on his fingers and a bird on his head

A man balancing two balls on his fingers and a bird on his head

A notebook drawing by John Vernon Lord, 1976

Three men under a hat

Three men under a hat

Notebook drawing by John Vernon Lord, 

drawn during a meeting on 13 July 1976

A hand holding a plant

A hand holding a plant

Notebook drawing by John Vernon Lord, 20 May 1976

Munrow the medieval is gone,

Munrow the medieval is gone,

Notebook drawing by John Vernon Lord, 20 May 1976

Self portrait and daughter Corin

Self portrait and daughter Corin

Notebook drawing by John Vernon Lord, 1973. 

Box Characters

Box Characters.

Notebook drawing by John Vernon Lord, 1973. 

Castle and Bridge

Castle and Bridge

Notebook drawing by John Vernon Lord, 1969.

'Only Draw'

'Only Draw',

Notebook drawing by John Vernon Lord, 1969.

A Portrait of John R Biggs

A Portrait of John R Biggs,

Head of Graphic Design at Brighton College of Art 1953-1974.

Notebook drawing by John Vernon Lord, December 1968

(Isopod), castle, fish and bridge

(Isopod), castle, fish and bridge,

Notebook drawing by John Vernon Lord 5 December 1968

Man holding a viol

Man holding a viol,

Notebook drawing by John Vernon Lord 1968

'Till late in the night did he read, rocking, reminiscing restfully'

'Till late in the night did he read, rocking, reminiscing restfully',

a diary drawing by John Vernon Lord, 29 July 1965.

During the reading of Gide

During the reading of Gide.

a diary drawing by John Vernon Lord, July 1965. 

.

Endpaper incorporating Edward Lear's Nonsense Botany

Endpaper incorporating Edward Lear's Nonsense Botany,

illustrated by John Vernon Lord

in The Nonsense Verse of Edward Lear, Jonathan Cape, 1984.

Sketch for an abstract print

Sketch for an abstract print,

by John Vernon Lord when a student in 1960

August landscape for 1961

August landscape for 1961,

drawing by John Vernon Lord, 1961.

Two figure drawings

Two figure drawings,

Costume life drawings in a sketchbook by John Vernon Lord,  1960/1.