Brett Helquist is best known for his illustrations for the popular A Series of Unfortunate Events children’s books by “Lemony Snicket” (Daniel Handler).
Helquist was born in Arizona, grew up in Utah, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Brigham Young University, and currently lives and works in New York City.
He cites as his inspiration some of the all time great American illustrators like Howard Pyle, N.C. Wyeth and Dean Cornwell (also here).
Helquist’s first job was as an intern for illustrator Robert Neubecker, he then went on to do editorial illustrations for newspapers and magazines. Lemony Snicket’s The Bad Beginning, the first in the series, was his first book illustration assignment.
Since then he has done both cover and interior illustrations for many other books in the series, as well as many in the Tales from the House of Bunnicula series written by James Howe, and cover illustrations for the recent reprinting of the Green Knowe series, along with a number of others. (It’s easy to miss the small navigation to the second page of his portfolio.)
In addition, Helquist is both the author and illustrator of Roger, the Jolly Pirate (above, bottom, right).
Helquist has a superb crosshatching technique. Wonderfull illustrator.
I took a class at BYU from Brett, he was very inspirational as a teacher as well. I don’t think he has much time for teaching any more! It’s great to see him get so successful! He was very passionate about illustration a long time before he really made it big.
wow – this guy is amazing.
Oh my gosh!!!!!!!!! You are like, my favorite illustrator ever!!!!! U rock!!!!!!!!