Dale and Betty Maxey Mid century Illustrators

It’s a good two years since I last posted about the wonderful work of author and Illustrator Dale Maxey. I’ve had quite a bit of feedback and comments from yourselves but alas after another two whole years, I still really know very little about him. These first illustrations were taken from a book called ” The Wild and Woolly Animal Book “.

I love how his backgrounds are just dark shades of the same colour on a lighter wash, very effective.

He wrote and illustrated a great many titles.

Some better known than others !

I’d never heard of ‘Preep’ before, The Little Pigeon of Trafalgar Square, but as I can find reference to at least two other Preep titles, I’m guessing he was quite a popular character.

Beautiful pencil illustrations, movement and perspectives here.

Then a Fishink Blog reader Andrew got in touch. He loves children’s illustration from the days of his youth (like me) and also discovered I had mentioned Dale’s work previously. He offered to send me some images from ‘Fidgit.. is a great hairy beast’ … so I jumped at the chance, and here they are.

Such a wonderful book for colour, pattern and fun.

I can only imagine that Dale had a great time drawing all of these creatures who in turn interact with Fidgit the mouse.

Just look at these amazing and slightly psychedelic backgrounds.

Dale manages to create such cheery and endearing characters, I think his work is a complete joy to look at.

Even though I somehow imagine Mr and Mrs Maxey to be American, Dale’s wife Betty, was working on Enid Blyton’s ‘Famous Five’ series of books, which I’d imagine were a very English piece of childhood nostalgia for many of us readers today. Dale also did a book called ‘Seeing London” so perhaps they lived in the UK after all. Here’s some of Betty’s work.

The Enid Blyton images were nearly always about simple line drawings, showing events that were happening in the text and of course bringing the characters to life by giving them all a recognisable face.

There were many adventures to be had….

…places to discover and check out, treasure to be found and of course, baddies to encounter. Usually with heavily scarred or angry faces, just to make them scarier than ever! lol

Betty also worked for magazines. Here’s some 1969 work for the serial ‘Wistaria Street ‘ by Jane Anthony, for Woman’s Realm magazine. This is much more detailed than her work above and uses more shading and tone.

With the fame from the Enid Blyton books, Betty’s work also worked well for Noel Streatfeild and some of her well-known seventies books for girls.

A talented couple for certain. Many thanks to Andrew for the Dale Maxey images and your time in contacting me and photographing them for everyone to share, very kind indeed. If anyone knows any more about this fascinating pair, or perhaps you have more of Dale’s work I’ve not covered here already, then please do let us know.  Many thanks. Do tune in and help me celebrate my 1000th post on Monday too ! Whooop !!

POST UPDATE 2020

James Tate kindly contacted me to say he had a publicity shot of Betty with his father and would I like a copy… well of course I would and so here it is..

From left.. the first person is unknown, then Chuck Kessler, Betty Maxey, James’s father Don Tate & Tom Hoyne. If anyone knows who is the first person on the left is then James would like to find out. Thanks James for sharing this lovely shot.