Rarely Seen Paintings by J.R.R. Tolkien Portray a Lush 'Lord of the Rings' Landscape

[Judi Lynn]

The Tolkien Estate recently published a trove of rare, unpublished art by the famed fantasy author on its website

Nora McGreevy
Daily Correspondent

March 18, 2022



Detail from Tolkien's Conversation With Smaug, 1937 Courtesy of the Tolkien Estate / © The Tolkien Estate Limited


In his high-fantasy novels, British author J.R.R. Tolkien combined his academic training in languages and his love of storytelling to create Middle-earth, a fictional continent populated by wizards, elves, orcs, dragons, hobbits, talking trees and other mythical creatures.

But Middle-earth didn’t just live in Tolkien’s head: The Lord of the Rings author was also a skilled artist who sketched, painted and mapped the worlds that he was imagining as he wrote about them. Many of the original illustrations in the Hobbit were created by Tolkien himself.

Audiences can now view a selection of Tolkien’s rarely seen Lord of the Rings artworks for free via the Tolkien Estate’s newly updated website, reports Sarah Cascone for Artnet. The portal, which debuted last month, also allows viewers to explore documents, images and audio clips related to Tolkien’s personal life and his lesser-known pursuits as a mapmaker, calligrapher and artist.



One of J.R.R. Tolkien's original illustrations for The Hobbit: Bilbo comes to the Huts of the Raft-elves, July 1937 Courtesy of the Tolkien Estate / © The Tolkien Estate Limited

According to an emailed statement, the site features 12 previously unpublished items, including Tolkien’s paintings of flowers and exotic birds, a draft manuscript of The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son (1953), and photographs of the author and his family.

More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/jrr-tolkiens-estate-publishes-rare-lord-of-the-rings-paintings-and-maps-online-180979674/

(Sorry if this forum seems an odd choice for this article's posting, but I wanted to make sure it was noticed.... thank you.)

[ZZenith]

1. What a genius.

Such wonderful composition and ornamentation.

Thanks for posting this!

[awesomerwb1]

2. Awesome.

Thanks for sharing.

[Archae]

3. And it all started with a single sentence on a piece of paper.

Tolkien was bored, so he wrote on the blank paper, "In a hole in the ground, there lived a Hobbit."

[Tom Kitten]

4. Neat

He was an excellent artist as well. I have a book of his released.a couple of years after his death called The Father Christmas Letters. They're letters containing stories he wrote to his children at Christmas time, and are full of illustrations he did. He was quite good! I also have an album of his, Poems and Songs of Middle Earth, which sings and recites himself!

The second painting you posted was used as the cover for a four record.boxed set of The Hobbit read by the British actor Nicol Williamson. He does quite a good too, he does all the voices himself.