Judith Clute
Judith Clute (born 1942) is a Canadian painter, graphic designer, print-maker, and illustrator. who has British citizenship, and works in London. She is also a tour guide with the Original London Walks. In 1975, for New Worlds (magazine), Clute did an India ink illustration for "Daddy's Girl" by Joanna Russ . It marked the beginning of the style she is known for: "constructing things from disparate elements". For the next five decades, Clute continued to produce works in this style, participating in 37 painting exhibitions to date and creating illustrations for a number of well-known science  fictions authors and magazines. Life and career. Judith Rosanne Wood James was born in Edmonton, Alberta in 1942, but grew up in Toronto and matriculated from Bishop Strachan School in 1961. In the same year she was invited to be a painting apprentice for two years in Vancouver with Françoise Andre and Charles Stegeman. She married John Clute in 1964 and they moved to London in 1969. From the beginning of her time in London, Clute became involved with the New Arts Lab. In June 1970, she participated in an exhibition with Pamela Zoline entitled "Judith Clute: Diagrams/Similes and  Pamela Zoline: Things in the World" at the London New Arts Lab. In the exhibition's press release Clute's paintings were described as having "mounted campaigns against easy reading". In 1983, Clute was commissioned to design the cover of the book "The Entropy Exhibition" by Colin Greenland. In 1985, she was commissioned by The Women's Press to do three book covers for the above mentioned writer, Joanna Russ: "The Female Man", Extra(ordinary) People and "The Adventures of Alex". Then in 1989, two more Joanna Russ covers for the Women's Press: The Hidden Side of the Moon and  We Who Are About To... In 1990, she designed the cover and all interior images for the science fiction magazine Interzone 42. In 1995, Clute designed the for "Look at the Evidence; Essays and Reviews" by John Clute. In 2000, she designed the cover for "Uncommon Places: Poems of the Fantastic" by Judith Kerman and Don Riggs. In 2003, Clute designed the cover for Scores: Reviews 1993-2003 by John Clute. In addition in Interzone 188, her artwork was displayed on the cover, and her life and work was discussed in an article entitled "Still Turning Motif's Upside Down  by Paul Brazier. In 2003, Clute acted in the film A Short Film about John Bolton" directed by Neil Gaiman. In 2005, she designed the cover for Surroundings: Reviews 1992-1996 by Gary K. Wolfe. In 2006, she did the cover and all interior illustrations for Chip Crockett's Christmas Carol by Elizabeth Hand. In 2008, she created etchings for Henry Wessells, in his Temporary Culture publication of Forever Peace. Stop War by Joe Haledeman. Copies are held in the Morgan Library and Museum, Yale Library and Duke University. In 2009 Judith designed the cover for Canary Fever: Reviews by  John Clute. In 2010, she designed the cover for Bearings: Reviews 1997-2001 by Gary K. Wolfe and in 2011, the cover for Sightings: Reviews 2002-2006, also by Gary K. Wolfe. In the same year she designed the cover "Pardon This Intrusion: Fantastika in the World Storm" by John Clute. Also in 2011, her painting "Bone Scan" was used for the cover of the online magazine, Salon Futura, issue 5. In 2014, she designed the cover for "Stay" by John Clute. In 2017, Clute was commissioned to do a painting for Amanda Palmer which was used as the album  cover for Amanda Palmer and Edward Ka-Spel's album "I Can Spin a Rainbow". In 2018, Clute participated in the pop-up show "'An Arts Lab Continuum"' at Spitalfields Studios, with six of the other artists who had been involved in the 1960s and early 1970s in the arts labs of Drury Lane and Robert Street. In 2019, The New York Review of Books published an illustration by Judith Clute for an article entitled "A Universe of One's Own" by Nicole Rudrick reviewing "The Future is Female!: 25 Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women, from Pulp Pioneers to  Ursula K. Le Guin". The illustration was Clutes's cover design for Joanna Russ's "Female Man". In December 2019, she did a radio interview with Chiara Ambrosio for "The Raft, a London Story" on Resonance radio, 104.4 fm. Style and influences. In 2006, Farah Mendlesohn compiled a festschrift for John and Judith Clute entitled "Polder: A Festschrift for John Clute and Judith Clute". In the book’s introduction Mendelson describes her as follows: “Judith Clute has been referred to as a fantasy artist. Within the genre this tends to conjure up images of fantasy illustration, but Judith’s work  is not an illustration of fantasy, but part of the fantastic genre itself…Judith turns the world around, exposes the mimetic as gloriously unnatural.” Later on in the book Candas Jane Dorsey describes Clute: “[s]he sees the world with that fresh, slightly sideways glance that imposes no filters, and draws no foregone conclusions. As a result of combining that directness of observation with an accumulation of wordless wisdom, Judith has an eccentric and unique artistic vision, and thus a unique and eccentric body of significant work.” In "Judith Clute's Tantalizing 37th album" Geoff Ryman noted in his comments on  her one person show at Camden Images Gallery that "this is Judith Clute's 37th exhibition" and he described her work as follows. "You could call it expressionist except that works express calm, fluidity, balance, and elegance rather than rage of energy. Even when the content seems to be screaming." Awards. In 2017, Clute won the "Best Artist Award" delivered by the European Science Fiction Society. Selected bibliography. The Association of Illustrators: 10th Annual, Rotovision, 1985, page 146, ISBN 2880460530 The Encyclopedia of Fantasy and Science Art Techniques, John Grant & Ron Tiner, Titan Books, 1996, page 163, ISBN 1852867027 Fantasy  Art Masters: The Best In Fantasy and SF Art World Wide, Dick Jude, Harper Collins, 2002, page 38-49 inclusive, ISBN 0007137478 Paper Tiger Fantasy Art Gallery, edited by Paul Barnett, Paper Tiger, 2002, pages 30–35 inclusive, ISBN 1855859572 Interzone #188, editor David Pringle, "Still Turning Motifs Upside Down", Paul Brazier, Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2003, pages 34–36 inclusive, ISSN 0264-3596 Polder: A Festschrift for John Clute and Judith Clute, edited by Farah Mendlesohn, Old Earth Books, 2006. ISBN 1882968344 London's Arts Labs and the 60's Avant Garde, David Curtis, John Libbey Publishing, 2020, pages 117 -118 inclusive, ISBN 0861967483