Artwork

Peter Campbell was the resident designer and art critic for the London Review of Books.

He worked for the magazine from its first appearance in 1979 and wrote more than 300 pieces, mainly about art but also about such things as escalators, weeds, bicycles, bridges and hearts. Each fortnight from 1996 onwards, Peter created a cover illustration for the LRB, coming up with a seemingly infinite array of unpredictable images: a yacht and a starfish, a tram, two knickerbocker glories, a game of dominoes, a man walking past a lighted window at night. The immediate freshness, colour, playfulness and surprise of these covers belied their technical skill, erudition and command of detail and artistic reference. Peter Campbell designed and edited BBC books by Kenneth Clark, Jacob Bronowski and David Attenborough. He worked often with Quentin Blake and wrote the introduction to Blake’s The Life of Birds. He worked, too, on several books by his fellow LRB contributor Alan Bennett. He described the LRB job as perfect for him and his ‘absurd good fortune’. It allowed his talent and years of expertise to come together. Artwork is a collection of Peter’s finest works over the years.