Chris Wormell
Born 1955, Christopher Wormell is one of Britain’s finest wood engravers, principally known for his illustrated books.
Chris was born in 1955 in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. The son of a landscape painter, he left school at eighteen and began pursuing art by painting landscapes between jobs. He had no formal training as an artist, working as a road-sweeper, rubbish collector, postman and a factory worker.
In 1982, he picked up wood engraving by buying a set of tools and teaching himself. He creating a portfolio of works that captured the interest of publishers and Wormell was hired to create wood engravings for books of poetry and guides to wine.
Using his expertise in linoleum block print he created animal illustrations for several concept books geared for young children.
His first children’s book, An Alphabet of Animals, published in 1990 won that year’s Graphics Prize at the Bologna International Children’s Book Fair.
Chris Wormell contributed illustrations to The Roald Dahl Treasury published by Jonathan Cape in 1998 and produced a series of fine engravings for English Country Traditions published by Running Press.
Blue Rabbit and Friends and Blue Rabbit and the Runaway Wheel both published by Jonathan Cape have won him a `highly commended’ in the Victoria and Albert Illustration Award. He was the recipient of the 2004 New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Children’s Book Award for Teeth, Tails, and Tentacles.
He has published some 14 illustrated books and acted as illustrator of other’s work on at least 18 more. His work has also been published as greetings cards and he designed the artwork for a series of advertisements for Adnams, a regional brewer based in Suffolk.
Always keen to try new mediums, Christopher has turned his hand to coloured pencils in more recent picture books, Animal Train and Animal Fair, and he has also had extraordinary success with watercolours, producing bestselling books Two Frogs, In The Woods, Big Ugly Monster and the Little Stone Rabbit and particularly successfully, George and The Dragon.
He lives in London with his wife and three children.
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