Still visiting hospital taking mother-in-law but things not quite as an ’emergency’ as they were, now downgraded to ‘urgent’ which means I’ve been able to add a few more bits and pieces to George’s page. This is a representative selection of work he did not only for PAN but other publishers. I was really pleased to be able to meet up with him at his flat in London and I was even more pleased when he generously gave me the three pieces of original artwork shown on the page. I am having them framed at the moment and they will take pride of place on my wall along with ‘The Chequer Board’ I already had. They were not originally signed but they are now. If I was to pick a favourite it would be ‘On The Beach’ but surprisingly, and George agreed, it is better as book cover size with the colours being more vibrant and intense, probably a quirk of the printing process.

I contacted George regarding the credit anomoly on the Herriot covers and he replied “Rob McCaig assisted me on the project. It is his work only in part for we both worked on each of 11 paintings completed over a period of little more than a week in order to re-jacket  the entire backlist in order to coincide with the publishing of James Herriott’s final hardback. Somebody at Pan removed my credit”

I have only just learnt that the prolific artist Val Biro passed away on the 4th July this year. It was a pleasure to meet up with him a couple of years ago at his studio in Bosham, West Sussex. Balint Stephen Biro was born on the 6th October 1921 in Budapest and studied at the Jaschnick School of Art before coming to the UK as war loomed. He continued to study at the  Central School of Art in London from where he went on to painting numerous covers for PAN in the 1950’s

George Sharp with the original artwork for ‘Round The Bend’ by Nevil Shute

Unfortunately, due to elderly in-law problems involving several visits to doctors and the hospital this week I’ve not managed to finish the page for George Sharp as I would have liked. I will try this week but click on the link to see it so far.

One anomaly is that the James Herriot covers from around the 80’s state they are by George Sharp and Robb McCaig and the page shows three examples of the original artwork that George has. In the boxed set of 2012 using the same artwork the only credit is given to Robb McCaig, I think I may need to contact George regarding this.

I did find time to scan in another 24 Barbara Cartland covers. That was a very long session well into the night but if you need something to send you to sleep it certainly helps.