John Howe in 2003
John Howe (born August 21, 1957) is a book illustrator, living in Neuchatel, Switzerland. He and Alan Lee are widely recognized as the most prominent artists of J.R.R. Tolkien's mythology.
Since the 2000's, Howe has appeared in many documentaries and produced two original "fantasy workshop" books on drawing and design methods.
Biography[]
John Howe was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. A year after finishing high school, he studied at a college in Strasbourg, France, and then at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs.
He became best known for his illustrations depicting J.R.R. Tolkien's world. In 1999, Howe and Alan Lee were chosen as lead artists for Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. Howe also re-illustrated the maps of The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion in 1996–2003. He contributed art to the HarperCollins paperback editions of The History of Middle-earth series, and for Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth. Fantasy Flight Games' The Lord of the Rings board game and War of the Ring board game (2004) feature art by Howe as well.
Howe with Peter Jackson during the production of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
He has also depicted myths such as Arthurian legend and Beowulf and illustrated other fantasy works, including those of Robin Hobb, and contributed to the film adaptation of C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. He is an expert in medieval armour and weaponry.
In 2006, Myth and Magic: The Art of John Howe was written and compiled by Howe alongside Peter Jackson, as the first published portfolio of his paintings and sketches.
Writer Brian Sibley has collaborated with Howe many times for map-book productions of Middle-earth: There and Back Again: The Map of Tolkien's The Hobbit (1995), The Map of Tolkien's Beleriand and the Lands to the North (1999), The Maps of Tolkien's Middle-earth (2003), The Road Goes Ever On and On: The Map of Tolkien's Middle-earth (2009), and West of the Mountains, East of the Sea: The Map of Tolkien's Beleriand and the Lands to the North (2010). These feature maps and accompanying illustrations by Howe, and commentary by Sibley.
Howe became the chief appearance in Oliver Simonnet's 2014 documentary series, Looking for the Hobbit, in which he explores and tours both the The Hobbit trilogy film set and real-life locations that inspired Tolkien's literary creation, such as spots in Germany and Iceland.
Howe (second from left) in a cameo as one of the Nine future Ringwraiths
In October 2018, he saw the publication of A Middle-earth Traveler: Sketches from Bag End to Mordor, a 176-page anthology specifically of his major Middle-earth illustrations, equivalent to Alan Lee's earlier The Lord of the Rings Sketchbook. He contributed to an Illustrated Edition of Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth alongside Ted Nasmith and Alan Lee, a rare collaboration of the three, released in October 2020.
Documentary appearances[]
- The Lord of the Rings film trilogy appendices (2002 - 2004)
- Part One: From Book to Vision > Designing and Building Middle-earth
- Part Four: The Battle for Middle-earth Begins > Visual Effects > Miniatures and Weta Digital
- Part Five: The War of the Ring > Designing and Building Middle-earth > Designing Middle-earth, Big-atures, and Weta Workshop
- Looking for the Hobbit (2014)
External links[]