Алан Ли: «Жүзіктер Әлемі» мен «Хоббит» суретшісінің шығармашылығы

Illustrator and movie conceptual designer

Alan Lee (born 20 August 1947) is an English book illustrator and film conceptual designer. He is best known for his artwork inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novels, and for his work on the concept design of Peter Jackson's film adaptations of Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film series.

Alan Lee was born in Middlesex, England, and studied at the Ealing School of Art.

Lee has illustrated dozens of fantasy books, including some non fiction, and many more book covers. He has illustrated retellings of classics for young people. Two were Rosemary Sutcliff's versions of the Iliad and the Odyssey—namely, Black Ships Before Troy (Oxford, 1993) and The Wanderings of Odysseus (Frances Lincoln, 1995). Another was Adrian Mitchell's version of Ovid's Metamorphoses—namely, Shapeshifters (Frances Lincoln, 2009). Lee made cover paintings for the 1983 Penguin edition of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy. They were recruited by director Guillermo del Toro in 2008 for continuity of design in the subsequent The Hobbit films, before joining Jackson when he took over the Hobbit films project. Jackson has explained how he originally recruited the reclusive Lee. By courier to Lee's home in the south of England, he sent two of his previous films, Forgotten Silver and Heavenly Creatures, with a note from himself and Fran Walsh that piqued Lee's interest enough for him to become involved. Lee went on to illustrate and even to help construct many of the scenarios for the movies, including objects and weapons for the actors. For example his illustration of the tower of Orthanc was closely followed by the set designers of The Two Towers to create a "bigature" at 1:35 scale for close up filming. He made two cameo appearances: in the opening sequence of The Fellowship as one of the nine kings of men who became the Nazgûl; and in The Two Towers as a Rohan soldier in the armoury (over the shoulder of Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn who is talking to Legolas in Elvish). Two years after completing The Lord of the Rings film series, Lee released a 192 page collection of his concept artwork for the project, The Lord of the Rings Sketchbook (HarperCollins, 2005). Peter Jackson said, "His art captured what I hoped to capture with the films."

Lee worked as a concept designer on the films Legend, Erik the Viking, King Kong and the television mini series Merlin.