Garrick Palmer - Commissions and Reviews

Commissions and Reviews

The strength and vigour of Palmer's work found particular expression in landscape and the sea. In 1967, the Folio Society awarded him his first commission, to illustrate Three Stories by Herman Melville, which included Palmer's first full-page illustration to Benito Cereno of the head of Babo, the rebellious slave, on a pike in the market square. The Society commissioned him again in 1971 for The Destruction of the Jews, by Josephus, and in 1974 for Moby Dick, by Melville. Similarly the short-lived Imprint Society in Barre, Massachusetts, commissioned Palmer to illustrate H. M. Tomlinson's The Sea and The Jungle in 1971 and Benito Cereno, by Melville, in 1972. The haunting image of the head of Babo on a pole returns, this time with significant differences that highlight Palmer's artistic development. The Old Stile Press, in Llandogo, succeeded in charming Palmer back to his boxwood blocks to illustrate The Ballad of Reading Gaol, by Oscar Wilde, in 1994 (225 copies); in the same year he illustrated The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Coleridge. The blockbuster book LAND, Old Stile Press, 1996 (240 copies), featured landscape wood engraving in Palmer's "instantly recognizable style" and text by Eric Williams and soon sold out. Palmer also illustrated Ship of Sounds, Gruffyground Press, 1981 (130 copies), a poem by John Fuller.