Don’t ask me why but I woke up the other morning after dreaming about this classic cover of ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and wondering who the illustrator was. My online investigations led me to a designer called David Pelham in 1972.

During the ‘falling down of yet another google rabbit hole’, I discovered that the original 1962 book cover was created by the artist Barry Trengrove, much more to my mid century taste.

Barry must have been very much in demand at that time, because a year later he was featured in the 1963 publication “17 Graphic Designers London”. This was an early attempt to present the work and effectiveness of a new breed of designer. The ‘graphic designer’ – at the time the term ‘commercial artist’ was still the general currency. The directory profiled the portfolios of 17 creative high flyers of the time – Dennis Bailey, Derek Birdsall, BDMW Associates; George Daulby, George Mayhew, Peter Wildbur, Ian Bradbery, David Collins, Bob Gill, Alan Fletcher, Colin Forbes, Sydney King, Jock Kinneir, Margaret Calvert, Romek Marber, John Sewell, Barry Trengrove, Tom Wolsey.

Here are a couple of pages taken from that publication.

Around the same time Barry added a few other well known book covers to his portfolio including this one for Leonard Cohen’s novel ‘The Favourite Game’ published in ’63.

That’s where the trail on Barry’s work goes cold, apart from discovering that he went on to have a career as a painter and Art Director.

Finally I discovered this article from Alzheimer’s Australia New South Wales 2007 publication written by Kay Barnes, Barry’s partner. She talks about Barry’s diagnosis with Alzheimer’s Disease and how it affected his work.

If anyone else has any images of his book covers, illustration or paintings, please get in touch to help fill in some of the gaps in Barry’s creative life. Thank you