Alan Aldridge
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alan Aldridge is a UK artist, born
in 1943. During the 1960s and 1970s he was responsible for a great
many album covers, and helped create the graphic style of that era.
He designed a series of science fiction book covers for Penguin
Books. He made a big impression with his illustrations for the
Beatles Illustrated Song lyrics. He also provided illustrations for
"The Penguin Book of Comics", a history of British and American
comic art. His work was characterised by a flowing, cartoony style
and soft airbrushing - very much in step with the psychedelic styles
of the times.
He is possibly best known, however,
for the picture book The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper Feast
(1973), a series of illustrations of anthropomorphic insects and
other creatures, which he created in collaboration with William
Plomer, who wrote the accompanying verses. This was based on William
Roscoe's poem of the same name, but was inspired when Aldridge read
that John Tenniel had told Lewis Carroll it was impossible to draw a
wasp in a wig.
Aldridge also created the artwork
for Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy by Elton John in
1975.
