Francis Marshall

Earlier this month, Leif Peng, of the highly recommended Today's Inspiration blog, ran a series of pieces on artist Francis Marshall. I knew nothing about him, but I instantly recognised a couple of the illustrations used as coming from Bible Story as I'd been involved in posting the same images to the Look and Learn picture library.

Briefly, Marshall, born in 1901, studied at Slade before entering the world of advertising illustration. In 1928 he began a 10-year relationship with Condé Nast, drawing for Vogue.

You can see plenty of examples of his work at Peng's blog, starting with this opening piece and progressing through a sampling of Marshall's book Magazine Illustration, illustrations from Rumer Godden's An Episode of Sparrows and various Reader's Digest condensed books in the 1950s, cover illustrations for a variety of Barbara Cartland romances, and a sampling of images from his work for the juvenile market in the 1960s, including Valentine, Bible Story and (I believe) Look and Learn.

(* Artwork © Look and Learn Ltd.; cover from Bible Story issue 25; Jezebel from issue 21, seen here as it was printed and as it was painted.)