In Memory of Brian Hargreaves
Popular Rye Artist
One of Rye’s Own best known artists, Brian Hargreaves died suddenly on the last day of September 2011.
Brian’s wonderful line drawings of Rye and the district have graced the pages of this magazine on many occasions. We shall miss him greatly. Brian will be remembered locally for the fine architectural quality drawings of Rye’s buildings which cover every corner of the town and have appeared in the fine Millennium publication “Ryennium” which he illustrated for Jo Kirkham, and in the two books he produced with his wife Joyce who is also an author and artist. Many pictures from these three publications have been used in the pages of “Rye’s Own” and “Hythe & Romney Life”.
Brian will be remembered nationally for his illustrations of butterflies which appear in many specialist publications. He was regarded as the best butterfly artist in the land and his knowledge of butterflies and moths was unbounded.
The Royal Entomological Society arranged for him to paint butterflies in the grounds of Buckingham Palace and examples of his best work were presented to the Queen on her Silver and Golden wedding anniversaries.
“RD” a butterfly blogger, was amazed by Brian’s work “The reason I first picked up the hardback version of The Butterfly Isles was because of the design of the dust jacket. Along the spine it has a drawing of a tree and a number of different species of butterflies flying about the branches that spread across the front and back cover. Most of the dust jacket has a smooth matt finish, but the drawings of the
butterflies are coated in a glossy varnish, which undoubtedly made the book more expensive to produce, but it’s a really nice design feature. I read about 50 pages of the book before I discovered 8 pages of full colour identification plates in the centre of the book. (Hurray!) It’s worth buying the book for these alone. They are by an artist called Brian Hargreaves and taken from A Field Guide to the Butterflies of Britain and Europe published in 1970. They are little works of art.” Brian’s work has been exhibited worldwide and his butterfly pictures have graced postage stamps.
In 2010 his “Exploring Rye with Brian Hargreaves” went on sale. This was followed, just a few months later.
“Exploring Romney Marsh with Brian Hargreaves” both have been reviewed with enthusiasm. Rye has lost a talented and genuinely nice man and “Rye’s Own” has lost a very good friend.
“Rye’s Own” November 2011
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