The Hobbit has been inspiring artists and readers for generations, ever since its publication 80 years ago today. Artwise, I’ve always had a soft spot for The Hobbit; I love that it lends itself equally well to delightful and weighty interpretations. Below, let’s take a look at how just a few of the unofficial band of “Tolkien artists” have approached Bilbo’s story.
Above, Over Hill and Under Hill by Chris Rahn.
(Click any image to enlarge.)
Alan Lee’s goblin king: this whole post could be full of Lee’s work. He’s truly one of the best of our contemporary painters. You’ll see that I restricted myself to just three throughout the post…
Queer Lodgings, part of Sam Bosma’s great series of Hobbit paintings: “I like the eagles a lot. They only do good in the stories but Tolkien is very careful to not make them cute. They are still giant raptors that steal livestock and might hunger for a hobbit-sized snack at any time.”
Gollum, from Swedish author and illustrator Inger Edelfeldt.
Tim Kirk captures The Riddle Game…
Greg and Tim Hildebrandt made their careers painting Tolkien’s world: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”
Darrell K. Sweet’s eagle’s nest. Donato Giancola (who now owns this painting) often credits Darrell with helping to ignite a life-long love of Tolkien’s work in him.
Barrels Out of Bond: Ted Nasmith’s Barrel Rider.
Donato Giancola’s “expulsion from paradise” take on The Hobbit.
J. R. R. Tolkien’s own drawing of The Hobbit landscape.
Roger Garland, with a relaxed Gandalf.
Eleanor Grosch’s Bilbo enjoying simple pleasures.
Justin Gerard, who said about painting The Hobbit, “I like drawing monsters that are just a little bit human, and who have personalities that you might recognize in people you’ve encountered in your own adventures, and The Hobbit has the very best of these.”
J. R. R. Tolkien
Peter Konig: concept art for Smaug, back when Guillermo del Toro was working on the movie.
The whole story told in the round, by Ian Escobar Loos:
Riddles in the Dark: David Wyatt did a series of great ink drawings for the book’s chapter heads.
David T. Wenzel: “Chip the glasses and crack the plates! / Blunt the knives and bend the forks! / That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates.”
Cory Godbey’s simple yet heroic Bilbo.
Iain McCaig, the man who invented Darth Maul, with a fierce Gandalf.
Super-cute Bilbo and Gandalf by António Quadros.
Greg and Tim Hildebrandt and An Unexpected Party.
Eric Fraser: “Farewell!” they cried. “wherever you fare, till your eyries receive you at the journey’s end!”
Michael Hague: Rescued From Wolves.
Sam Bosma: “The Dwarves of yore made mighty spells / while hammers fell like ringing bells / in places deep, where dark things sleep / in hollow halls beneath the fells.”
From German illustrator Klaus Ensikat:
The Rankin/Bass animated Hobbit….one of my most favorite movies as a kid. (And read-along record album.)
A battle scene by Matthew Stewart:
Mikhail Belomlinsky’s scratchboard Hobbitses.
John Howe—famous, of course, for being the lead artist on the Peter Jackson movies—has a long and wonderful history of painting Middle-earth.
Jonny Hodgson’s painting based largely on Tolkien’s Smaug graphic (seen below.)
The legendary Frank Frazetta: “Feeling tricksy, my precious?”
And a pen-and-ink, also from Frank Frazetta.
Randy Berrett, now working his magic at Pixar.
Acclaimed Dutch artist Cor Blok:
A drunken Galion from I. Hmielnickij.
Maurice Sendak was briefly assigned The Hobbit. Sadly, I don’t think the project got any further than this one image.
Finland’s national treasure, Tove Jansson (of Moomin fame) did a wonderful series of Hobbit drawings. You can see them all here.
John Howe, Gandalf in Hobbiton
The Battle of Five Armies by Justin Gerard:
Ted Nasmith, particularly good at capturing the landscape of Middle-earth.
One more from the Rankin/Bass movie, because I love it so.
Klaus Ensikat, for the second German edition of The Hobbit:
Another from Michael Hague:
As I mentioned, this whole post could be full of Alan Lee; here are two more because I couldn’t resist:
David Wyatt’s crafty Smaug:
And it seemed fitting to end on J. R. R. Tolkien’s own cover for The Hobbit, There and Back Again:
This post has been updated since its initial publication in December 2012.
Irene Gallo is the Art Director of Tor Books.
Thanks :D
I adore the look on Smaug’s face in Belomlinsky’s picture. Such disbelief! Loos’ story-picture is amazing, too! Thanks for this collection.
All of these are great, but man, having re-read “Riddles in the Dark” last night, that chapter head gave me chills.
Thanks for sharing all those pictures Irene. Obviously many artists I recognized, but quite a few new ones as well! Such a pleasure to see new voices adding to the chorus of artistic interpretations of Middle-earth. Looking forward to yet another voice in the Peter Jackson film!
Inger Edelfeldt’s painting of Gollum is great. My biggest problem with the trilogy was that I couldn’t imagine Gollum as ever being something normal, Edelfeldt’s painting makes him seem more realistic with a more humanoid face and body. Also, Peter Konig’s drawing of Smaug is downright disturbing, haha.
I didn’t notice any images from Ralph Bakshi. I have to say that a Hobbit in my minds eye is probaly inlfuenced more from the animated and live action films then what I have seen from illustrations. I think the main reason is I didn’t read the books in the 80’s until after I exposed to the animated films. Though now I have a hard time watching the animated films since Peter Jackson/Weta’s work.
Thanks Tor/Irene for another fine collection.
~Mike
I also loved the Rankin-Bass version. Ah, the spiraling freeze-frame of the spiders when Bilbo offed them…
Anyway, here’s another animated film based on The Hobbit, by Gene Deitch and Adolf Born:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/11/gene-deitch-the-hobbit_n_1198864.html
Ah, “Slag the Terrible”…
I love the Barrel Rider.
Wow, what a variety of imagery!
I have mixed feelings about the Rankin-Bass effort. The film was a brave and well-meant attempt, but not something for the ages. On the other hand, I was immensely pleased when it came out, because it was an affirmation of sorts. The early and mid 70s were a horrible mediocre dry hole for SF&F on TV and the movies. I’d discovered written SF&F, but it felt so lonely. A TV special featuring wizards and trolls and dragons was a great validation.
I’ve never seen the Rankin-Bass version, but from what I’ve seen of the art I don’t think I would like it at all. It looks like everything The Hobbit is not inside my head, if that makes any sense.
Thank for another beautiful array of pictures!
A Sendak illustrated edition of “The Hobbit”; what a tantalizing thought of what might have been. I love Godbey’s “…simple yet heroic Bilbo.” and McCaig’s “…fierce Gandalf”.
Nice work, as always, Irene. Another great collection and very timely, as the upcoming movie has the Hobbit on our minds! Next to Tolkien’s own illustrations, I think it is the Hildebrandt Brother’s art that I most associate with The Hobbit.
I love your art collections. Please keep them coming!
Lot of great stuff I’ve never seen here. Like AlanBrown, the Hildebrandt’s were my Tolkien interpreters. I had all the calenders and The Art of…
Hated the Rankin-Bass and Bakshi designs back in the day; they still look weird to me.
Tolkien’s own art is something special. I’m sorry we never got to see Sendak’s.
i think it really speaks to the true-ness of tolkien’s descriptions, that so much of the art based on his works all feel the same and are instantly identifiable, even if the styles are widely different. and this is something i love about these books.
Hmmm. R/B Bilbo looks more like Mister Toad than a hobbit. Are you sure this isn’t from their adaptation of The Wind in the Willows?
Man, does Frazetta!Gollum creep me out.
That’s Randy Berrett. Used to be one of my teachers at the Academy of Art in San Francisco back in the day. Now working at Pixar.
@10, Helen S.: The art may seem odd, but you do get John Huston as Gandalf, and an amazing Brother Theodore as Gollum. His is still the definitive vocal performance as Gollum to my mind.
@10: HelenS: I very willing to bet it’s a nostalgia thing. It was my first exposure to Tolkien. It did get me to read the novel once I got a few years older.
@17 Jake08: Thanks! I just fixed the caption.
@18 SF: That was Brother Theodore!? I used to listen to the album when I was 7 or 8 years old. I had no idea about Brother Theodore at the time. That’s amazing.
Thanks all! More “picturing” to come. I have about half a dozen of these in various stages. Calling them done is the hard part.
The “might have been” of a Maurice Sendak-illustrated “The Hobbit” fills me with sadness.
Beautiful stuff! some more hobbit art in this book that you might like :
http://tolkieninbengali.com/?p=14
@19 Irene: Yes, please, more “Picturing”! I love these posts!
That last picture, Tolkien’s little Smaug glyph, I think is going to be my next tattoo.
There are not enough words to express how relieved I am that G Toro did NOT do The Hobbit. Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy were gorgeous, but they are not in any way what Middle-Earth should look like, and that drawing only underscores it for me. Middle-Earth belongs to PJ, full stop.
(Plus the ending of Pan’s Labyrinth literally made me throw up with grief, so I was really worried what he was going to do to poor Bilbo.)
Great list as usual. I especialy loved the Wyatt Black & White chapter head. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit this but I don’t think I’ve ever heard of him before. Anyone know which version of the books those chapter heads appear in? Id love to see more of them. He doesn’t have much of an online presence but I did find this tumblr link if anyones interested…
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/david-wyatt
Damn fine work.
There’s some really evocative art in this post. Thanks for sharing it with us!
Great post, Irene! Thanks again, for this and for the post about production of A Memory of Light.
Thank you Irene, for this post! It was a joy to see such great art work on the Hobbit! Great stuff :)
Ted Nasmith’s works are among my favourites.
Re: DominickSaponaro ‘s question – David Wyatt’s illustrations appeared in the HarperCollins (reprinted as Collins Modern Classic in 2000 I think). They are wonderful, I agree – very evocative!
Thanks, Irene! The best part of these is that, as I look at all of them, they all seem “right”. Sometimes I see art based on a book (Wheel of Time art, particularly) and say to myself, “No, that’s not quite right”. I can’t say that about any of these. They’re different from what’s in my head, but they are all amazing and they all fit the book.
I have to agree with other posters about David Wyatt’s chapter head. I think it steals the show here. (That’s no small feat, either.)
Awesome collection!
I’m going to guess Peter Konig also did concept art for Pacific Rim? Or else Del Toro had a whole lot of influence on that particular piece, beccause that Smaug looks just like one of the kaiju. Which is an interesting idea, but I think I have to agree with Jackson that in designing Smaug they had to, in the end, make it look like what people expect a dragon to look like. But I am looking forward to seeing some of the designs they discarded from the film, because it sounds like some fun weird stuff in there.
This is a wonderful collection of images, and there are several here I really like and haven’t seen before.
I’m surprised you left out the new illustrated edition of the Hobbit – though I’m not sure the individual images online do it justice. The lovely thing about it is that it has not only big full page images but little decorative/illustrative ones scattered on almost every page.
http://www.jemimacatlin.com/thehobbit.html
Wonderful Post! Tolkien is one of my favorite authors, thanks for sharing all the beautiful art work that people have done of the hobbit!
These pictures bring me back. I can’t wait for the second movie.
And now the R/B song is in my head.
Down! Down! to Goblin Town!
Thank you for a great article!
In my opinion, the best illustrations are these:
http://www.tolkien.com.pl/hobbit/collection/hobbit-czech-1979-1st.php
What an epicpost. Thank you so much for this treasure trove of great and interesting images!
Thanks for sharing! I’ve enjoyed many of these over the years, but it’s always nice to see them all together.
Thank you for this beautiful feature. It reacquainted me with some old favorites and let me discover some new ones. I’m particularly glad you included some Frazetta work, because he is rarely credited, I find, as a Tolkien illustrator. I also enjoyed seeing the Rankin/Bass illustrations. The edition of the Hobbit that I read every year is the version illustrated with the Rankin/Bass artworks. There is a special magic to the Rankin/Bass Hobbit that remains relevant today and that seems to have aged well despite the more modern Jackson adaptation. I also enjoyed the Michael Hague paintings since he gave us one of the most memorable illustrated edition of The Hobbit.
All very good art, but I must admit I like Greg and Tim’s work the best.
I love Arts of Magali Villeneuve
http://magali-villeneuve.blogspot.fr/2012/04/
I wanted to make a comment about the extreme creepiness of David Wyatt’s chapter head illustration, but I see I already did. I’m going to comment about it again anyway, because several years later it still hits home. <Shivers>
Ian McCaig is one of my favorite Fighting Fantasy illustrators, but I had no idea he was a concept artist for the Star Wars prequels too!
What about Jian Guo / breath-art, or do digital artists not count? It was this site that introduced me to his extraordinary work.
Thanks.
I love these posts!
A magnificent array of art! I’m partial to Alan Lee’s portrait of the goblins, with the baby goblin just sitting in the middle of it. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Inger Edelfeld’s work before, but that’s now my all-time favorite Gollum portrait. *heart-eyes*
I second the surprise that none of Jian Guo’s art is here. And what the heck is happening in the Klaus Ensikat picture?
Frazetta does some great versions of the male characters, but when it comes to Eowyn he just can’t resist Frazetta-ing. His Eowyn faces the Fell Beast in conical boobplate and an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, buttfloss metal mono-kini.
When I cleaned out my mom’s house a few years ago, I found my old Barbara Remington poster from the 60’s. It was used for the covers of the old ‘authorized version’ paperbacks of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. I always felt the picture was evocative of a fantasy world although that may be due the fact the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings were the first fantasy books i read.
The story of Sendak:
http://collider.com/the-hobbit-illustrated-maurice-sendak/
(n.b. — I don’t agree with some of the opinions expressed in the second sentence of the article)
I did not know that Frazetta did Tolkien illustrations, but when I look at them yes, they’re very, very Frazetta.
@23 Lauren Ipsum
I have to say I feel exactly the opposite. One of my problems with the Peter Jackson films was that, visually, they were completely predictable and obvious. It always struck me as odd that they kept the look of the Balrog under wraps so carefully until the film’s release and when it appeared it looke exactly as you would expect it look.
I was looking forward to Del Toro’s completely different take on Middle Earth.
@35 HTO: Oh yes! I maybe wouldn´t call them “the best”, seeing all the amazing illustrations here, but this was the first version of Hobbit I´ve read, so, nostalgia…
So many beautiful works, but the ones by Matthew Stewart and Justin Gerard are just mindblowing. And of course, I could watch Alan Lee’s and John Howe’s work all day.
Not about “The Hobbit”, but Michael Komarck has really wonderful works, including a few about “The Lord of the Rings”. Just saying.
The second Klaus Ensikat picture is supposed to be Bilbo and the elf king. His gollum is also very strange:
Then there’s this glorious Smaug by Bob Eggleton:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153509409272626&set=a.96192637625.84141.824047625&type=3&theater
*Is there a way to upload images?
Nice Post but…
Did you check the URLs you posted? At least the link to Darrel K. Sweet leads to some trojan (fake flash updater). Which could be dangerous for people not sufficiently paranoid as me.
Really excellent contents. Thank you!
Er, I’m not suggesting that Tolkien should be used as a doormat, but that last cover for “There and back again” would make a truly lovely doormat !