British animator and illustrator Errol Le Cain was a member of Richard William’s animation studio in the 1960’s when they were producing the terrific and influential animated opening credits for films like A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Casino Royale (the original, weird one). He also worked on William’s The Thief and the Cobbler.
While he was working with William’s studio, Le Cain began to illustrate children’s books, developing a colorful style lush with patterns, textural design elements and Art Nouveau touches. In many ways his style seems like a continuation of the traditions of the European Golden Age illustrators (see the links in my recent post on Ivan Bilibin) without feeling like an emulation of any of them.
Le Cain went on to do extensive animation work for the BBC, continuing to create illustrations for children’s books into the years before his death in 1989.
Most of his books are out of print, but if you look around you can find them used.
There is a site devoted to his illustration work, The Illustrated Work of Errol Le Cain maintained by Tania Covo. Though it doesn’t have a gallery, per se, it has a list of his published work and the page for each title features two of his illustrations from that book.
