H(enry) J(ustice) Ford was a prolific illustrator who was born in 1860 in London. He is best known for the black-and-white line drawings he did for the many Andrew Lang fairy tale books of the late 1800s and early 1900s (titles include
The Red Fairy Book, The Green Fairy Book, The All Sorts of Stories Book, etc.) Ford was a contemporary of (and competitor with) other book artists such as Arthur Rackham and Willy Pogany.
Ford graduated with distinction from Cambridge and later studied art at the Slade. He became a tremendously skilled, imaginative artist whose work was strongly influenced by the pre-Raphaelites, Alphonse Legros, and Walter Crane. He did work on a wide range of topics that blended fantasy with everyday details, but his best work was done illustrating Eastern European and Middle Eastern legends.
Ford died in 1941.
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