THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
25 AMANDA HALL
553-570 are all illustrated in Margaret Mcallister (reteller), Aesop’s Fables, Oxford: Lion Children’s, 2011
356 553 THE MOUSE signed with initials watercolour and coloured pencil 4 3⁄4 x 3 1⁄2 inches Illustrated: dedication page, pages 9, 33, 56, 110 and back endpaper
A M A NDA HA L L Amanda Hall (Born 1956) Amanda Hall is an award-winning contemporary illustrator, particularly renowned for her wonderfully decorative and colourful children’s book illustrations, as well as her work for educational publications both in Britain and America. Amanda Hall was born in Linton, Cambridgeshire, on 4 October 1956. Her father, a painter, taught Art and Design at the Cambridge School of Art (now the Anglia Ruskin University) and her mother was a published author, who also worked as a medical secretary at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. Amanda was educated locally in Cambridge and went on to study graphic art and illustration at the Cambridge School of Art, where her father had taught. Since embarking on her career as an illustrator, Amanda has become internationally known and celebrated for her unique style. She was awarded the Silver US Parents’ Choice Award in 1997 for her illustrations for Madhur Jaffrey’s children’s picture book Robi Dobi: The Marvellous Adventures of an Indian Elephant and, more recently, was shortlisted for the Christian Booksellers’ Convention Children’s Book of the Year Award 2008 for her work with author Mary Joslin on the Day by Day Bible. She has illustrated publications for Barefoot Books, Frances Lincoln, Templar Publishing, Pavilion Books and Dorling Kindersley, as well as producing work for Radio Times and National Geographic. By using a combination of coloured pencil and watercolour ink, Amanda has developed a technique which allows her to produce illustrations that are brimming with colour and decorations, and she is now further extending her skills as an illustrator by adding other media. Her work is characteristically vivacious, bright and full of movement, overflowing with designs that take on an almost threedimensional quality. She cites the myths, legends and fairy tales of cultures from all over the world as her inspiration for the fantastical and magical creatures that she produces. Indeed, the powerful artistic and historical inheritance of India, North and South America and Europe, is evident in much of her work, which often has an inherently indigenous quality. Amanda lives and works in Cambridge, creating her illustrations in a timber shed at the bottom of her garden that she has named ‘The Shadowhouse’. When she is not working as an illustrator, she enjoys transforming gardens and rooms into fantasy spaces, and also performs as a singer. The biography of Amanda Hall is written by Eleanor Hall.
554 THE FOX signed with initials watercolour and coloured pencil 6 x 4 3⁄4 inches Illustrated: contents page and pages 26, 40, 88 and 103 555 THE FROG signed with initials watercolour and coloured pencil 2 1⁄2 x 3 1⁄2 inches Illustrated: pages 19, 67 and 96