From W. Somerset Maugham, Ashenden, or The British Agent, Heron Books, late 1960s or early '70s
Robert Flavell Micklewright was born in West Bromwich, Staffordshire in 1923, son of illustrator G. P. Micklewright and his wife Olive, née Flavell. He grew up in suburban London, and studied at Croydon School of Art in 1939.
He served in the army in Algeria, Tunisia, Italy and Greece during the Second World War. Returning to civilian life, he studied at Wimbledon School of Art (1947-49) and the Slade School of Fine Art (1949-52), after which he became a freelance illustrator and painter.
His work includes paintings for the headquarters of Gulf Oil, designs for Shell calendars, posters for London Transport, stamp books for the Post Office, book illustration, and spot illustrations for the BBC's listings magazine Radio Times.
He described himself as a "painterly draughtsman", and named his greatest influences as Breugel, Rembrandt, Edgar Dégas, Walter Sickert, Shahn (possibly Ben Shahn or Bernarda Bryason Shahn?) and Ruskin Spear.
He died in 2013.
Books illustrated[]
- Howard Agg, A Cypress in Sicily, 1967
- E. L. Almedingen, Ellen, 1971
- -- , Anna, 1972
- Michel-Aimé Boudray, Mike and the Motorbike, 1961
- Arthur C. Clarke, A Fall of Moondust, 1967
- -- , The Song Tree, 1972
- Humphrey M. Dobinson, Bird Count, 1976
- Daphne du Maurier, The Glass Blowers, Heron Books
- John Escott, Oddments Corner, 1976
- Katherine Hudson, The Story of Elizabethan Boy Actors, 1971
- -- , The Story of Geoffrey Chaucer, 1973
- W. Somerset Maugham, Ashenden, or The British Agent, Heron Books
- Sita Rathnamal, Beyond the Jungle, 1968
- Malcolm Saville, See How it Grows, 1971
- -- , The Seashore Quiz, 1981
- Noreen Shelley, Family at the Lookout, 1972
- Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, 1963
- -- , The Black Arrow, 1968
- Rosemary Sutcliff, Witch's Brat, 1970
- John Rowe Townsend, Summer People, 1972
- Joan Wills, The Sawdust Secret, 1973
References[]
- Martin Baker, Artists of Radio Times: a Golden Age of British Illustration, The Ashmolean, 2002
- Bridid Peppin and Lucy Micklethwait, Dictionary of British Book Illustrators: The Twentieth Century, John Murray, 1983, p. 202
- John Ryder, Artists of a Certain Line, The Bodley Head, 1960, pp. 100-101
- Drawing for Radio Times, The Bodley Head, 1961