Tolkien Art Open Discussion, Artists Not Previously Discussed: Tim Kirk

Daughter of Nienna

Daughter of Nienna

Grey Havens
This will be my last artist post for a while . . . next week, maybe, or the week after.


BIOGRAPHACAL INFORMATION FOR TIM KIRK:
Tim Kirk illustrated the 1975 J.R.R.Tolkien Calendar for Ballantine Books. He is a five time winner of the Hugo award for science fiction and fantasy art. From 1980 to 2001 he was employed as a designer for Walt Disney Imagineering, and was instrumental in the conception and realization of several major theme park projects, including the Disney-MGM Studios in Florida, and Tokyo DisneySea, which debuted in September 2001. In 2002 he, along with his brother and sister-in-law (also Disney veterans) founded Kirk Design Incorporated, specializing in museum, restaurant, retail and theme park work. Kirk Design’s latest project is the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, which opened in Seattle in June 2004.— Tolkien Society blub (scroll down)

1. Official Website Bio – detailed bio
2. Tim Kirk - Wikipedia
3. Science Fiction Museum Hall of Fame Advisory Board




THE REST ARE HERE:

Images by Tim Kirk - Tolkien Gateway (13 images)

The Tim Kirk Collection - Rolozo (13 images)

Timothy Kirk – Tolkienion (7 images)




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While Tim Kirk's linework and color choices date him to the mid-70s a bit (nothing wrong with that, certainly!) it's got an energy to it that I really like...you can sense the fun he had working on each piece. I first laid eyes on his art when I was a kid, so it benefits from the rosy glow of nostalgia as well.

He makes unusual choices, has good feel for atmosphere, and isn't afraid to place the focal point in an inconspicuous place (witness Smaug appearing like a comet above Laketown). His figures suffer a bit from cartoony "compression," but I dig his take on Gandalf and the Orc trackers.

Not surprising that he's involved in the world of animation: there's a hard-edged quality to his work that brings traditional cel animation techniques to mind.
 
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I completely agree, right down to the 70s nostalgia - oh for the days when Tim Kirk first showed us the way out of Ye Olde Hildebrandt Lande. And I love his wet work/psychedlic backgrounds.

One of the wonderful things about this discussion series is to note when one artist picks a scene from Tolkien that no other artist has done or will do. Kirk excelled at this: since the 70s, has any other artist done the hobbits approaching Maggot's farm, Frodo arriving on the other side, or the tracker orcs?

For me, Kirk owns those scenes!

Not that his Gandalf at the door of Bag End, or his Bilbo and Gollum, or Galadriel giving Frodo the phial, aren't classics as well, even when compared to later versions by other accomplished artists.

His style does draw on animation conventions, nice point. Couldn't we wish that Ralph Bakshi had grabbed Tim Kirk and a team of animators who could do his style, back in '79!
 
>>oh for the days when Tim Kirk first showed us the way out of Ye Olde Hildebrandt Lande.

Actually, he pre-dates them, since the first Hildebrandt calendar was in 1976. His Tolkien images, which appeared in the 1975 calendar, were originally painted to satisfy his requirements for completion of his Master's degree (in painting or fine art, if I recall correctly.)

In the early years of the Mythopoeic Society, some of Tim Kirk's line work appeared in Mythlore and Mythprint.
 
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I've always loved his picture of Valinor. Those green slopes rising up farther than the eye can see are perfect. They kind of remind me of Aslan's country, too.
 
The picture of the shores of Valinor looks like a fjord.

It has occurred to me that the flora of Valinor might be representative of an earlier era in the world's history in which most of the trees of the world were conifers, before the flowering plants took over. However, those trees remind me a great deal of pines, which are a very modern group of conifers, although I suppose they could be redwoods, which are a more ancient lineage and really did dominate the world at one time. Members of the pine family today are indicative of either cold, dry, or well-drained environments, and I don't think that any of these should apply to Aman, although I could see a huge rainshadow created by the Pélori, possibly creating a huge desert inland, that might, as southwestern North America is, be populated by woodlands of piñon pine and juniper, overlooking the spectacular canyon country that has made that part of the continent famous throught the world.

Junipers are a fairly recent group of trees, too, by the way.

But aside from that, I would expect Valinor to have more of a tropical appearance, so if there are conifers there then they should be things like redwoods and monkeypuzzle trees.

Not a lot of other comments, except that the hobbit in the foreground looks quite childlike with his huge head.
 
By rights this should be the shore of Tol Eressëa, not Valinor, and there were mallorn trees on Eressëa. (Their seeds were carried from there to Númenor, and thence to Middle-earth.)
 
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