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The art and illustrations of Edmund Blampied

Edmund Blampied (1886-1966) was one of the most eminent artists born in Jersey. In the 1920s and 1930s he made a reputation in Britain and the USA as painter and print maker, but he was also a prolific illustrator of books and magazines.

He illustrated 25 books and designed the dust jacket of nearly 180 titles, mostly romantic novels. There are probably more dust jackets to find, but they are fragile and rarely survive on books which were published 100 years ago. Blampied published only one book under his own name, a book of humorous cartoons called Bottled Trout and Polo (1936), but three were published using the name Blam: two children's alphabet books, The Jolly ABC and The Breezy Farm ABC and Blam's Book of Fun.

Blampied also provided more than 1,000 illustrations for periodicals: for weekly social magazines such as The Bystander and The Sketch; for monthly story magazines such as Pearson's Magazine or Hutchinson's Magazine; and for women's magazines such as The Ladies Field and Woman. His work as an artist was also featured in books, newspapers and art periodicals. Only examples of his work published during his life time are included in these pages, except in books about him, in order to include recent catalogues and biographies.

Photograph of Blampied at his easel in 1939, aged 53

The art of Edmund Blampied was shown at many exhibitions during his life time, examples of his art were reproduced in contemporary books and magazines, while there are many museums and galleries throughout the world that now hold examples of his art.

Here you can find:

• A list of books and periodicals that reproduced examples of his art or reported on his art.
• A list of more than 130 Museums and Art Galleries that hold examples of Blampied's art, with links to each collection and to images of notable pictures, when available.
• A list of major exhibitions that showed the art of Edmund Blampied held between 1914 and 1964.
• A history or timeline of Edmund Blampied's life, with information about his family and friends, illustrated with photographs.
• A virtual recreation of an exhibition of Blampied's oil paintings held at the Leicester Galleries in 1925 using monochrome photographs, and some earlier oils from 1923, plus some later ones.
• A sequence of watercolours painted by Blampied between 1927 and 1939.
• An outline of the content of a proposed new catalogue of Blampied's prints.
• A short biography of Harold Baily, an American collector of Blampied's work and the author of an article about Blampied published in The Print Collector's Quarterly.

NEW on 27/7/2022: A page on The Lady's Realm, a newly found magazine which published 11 early illustrations by Blampied.

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Bibliography and Biography

This bibliography supercedes the companion bibliography to my biography, Edmund Blampied: an Illustrated Life, which was published by Jersey Heritage Trust in 2010 to coincide with an exhibition of Blampied's work as an illustrator held at the Jersey Museum. You can see my photographs of the exhibition here. Click on the first image to start a slide show.

I still have a few copies of the Biography of Edmund Blampied which I can offer, signed, for the cover price of £25, to include postage within the U.K. If you live somewhere else, please contact me.

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