These are Richard Hook illustrations from Great Folk Tales of Old Ireland, compiled by Mary Mary McGarry in 1972. I didn’t find a lot of information about Richard Hook, just that he was a free lance illustrator, 1938-2010. From what I can tell, these are extremely different from his usual illustrations, and by far the most interesting and beautiful to me. So different that I wonder if maybe this is a different Richard Hook who illustrated books at the exact same time… Though that seems very unlikely. He worked primarily for Osprey Books, you can read a very loving remembrance of him on their website.
I received this wonderful book from my mother long ago and have just loved it. Im now reading it to my grandchildren. At first they thought I was a bit touched but soon got with the tales..
This is the definitely the same Richard Hook, i have just been looking him up after picking up an old copy of ‘Around The World in Eighty Days’ which he did the images for. The illustrations are terrific and in the same style to those above. From what i gather he did a lot of work for fiction publications early on but spent most of his career doing historical images for textbooks.
Thanks for putting these up. Love his work.