\n But few will know that the man responsible for bringing that magical scene to life grew up on the clifftops of Newhaven, where he lives to this day.\n<\/p>\n
\n Cliff Wright, 63, is the artist behind the original covers of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.\n<\/p>\n
\n When he was first approached to illustrate the second book in JK Rowling’s series – which was published in 1998 – he had little idea of the extraordinary phenomenon it would become.\n<\/p>\n
\n “It was just another job because,” he said. “There was none of the Harry Potter hype that there is now.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Cliff’s cover for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, which was published in 1998 (Image: Wikimedia)\n<\/p>\n
\n By that point, Cliff had already established himself as a successful children’s book illustrator, having spent years building a career after graduating from Brighton College of Art in 1986.\n<\/p>\n
\n Publishers commissioned him to illustrate the second Harry Potter book, giving him a relatively loose brief and suggesting a passage from the story for the cover.\n<\/p>\n
\n The resulting illustration, featuring Harry and Ron Weasley flying the enchanted Ford Anglia, would become one of the defining images of the series.\n<\/p>\n
\n But creating it presented some unusual challenges.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I’m no car expert,” Cliff admitted.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I had to do some research to get flying angles of Ford Anglias. And you couldn’t find many pictures of Anglias flying, obviously, because that’s magic.\n<\/p>\n
\n “So that was a challenge.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Cliff has spent many years teaching drawing and giving workshops around the world (Image: Cliff Wright)\n<\/p>\n
\n The final painting, an A3-sized watercolour, was produced following a series of exchanges with the publishers and author JK Rowling.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I would get comments from her via faxes to the publisher, which were then passed on to me,” he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I remember one about a castle that was going on the back cover. After a first rough drawing I’d done, the comment came back from JK Rowling that the castle wasn’t ‘shambolically turreted’ enough.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I put many more turrets on after that.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Although the character would later become one of the most instantly recognisable fictional figures in the world, another challenge was deciding what Harry Potter himself should look like.\n<\/p>\n
\n “The character descriptions are limited in the book,” Cliff said.\n<\/p>\n
\n “All we’re really told is that Harry has dark hair, a scar on his forehead, and heavy-rimmed glasses.\n<\/p>\n
\n “In terms of inventing the character, that was all left to me.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Cliff’s cover for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which was published in 1999 (Image: Wikimedia)\n<\/p>\n
\n Cliff went on to illustrate the cover of the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999), featuring Harry and Hermione riding the hippogriff Buckbeak.\n<\/p>\n
\n It was following that book’s publication that he began to grasp the extraordinary scale of the phenomenon he had become involved in.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Once that third book was published, it was breaking records all over the world and people were queuing in bookshops like they never had before,” Cliff recalled.\n<\/p>\n
\n “That was when I realised.”\n<\/p>\n
\n More than two decades later, his illustrations remain familiar to generations of readers around the world.\n<\/p>\n
\n In recent years, Cliff has been taking commissions for portraits in the style of his famous Harry Potter illustrations (Image: Cliff Wright)\n<\/p>\n
\n For Cliff, the experience is still slightly surreal.\n<\/p>\n
\n “It’s really odd,” he said. “It’s amazing. You can’t tell that’s going to happen when you create the piece.\n<\/p>\n
\n “And to be honest, it isn’t the best work I’ve ever done. But it’s easily the best known.\n<\/p>\n
\n “It’s very strange how these things happen. I look back on it with fondness because that work is recognised all over the world.”\n<\/p>\n
\n He remembers travelling to Nepal shortly after the publication of the third book and discovering just how far his artwork had travelled.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I was in the middle of the mountains, in the middle of nowhere, signing kids’ books,” he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n “It was just bizarre. And of course wonderful as well, at the same time.”\n<\/p>\n
\n A self-portrait of Cliff, who said growing up on the clifftops in Newhaven inspired him to draw as a child (Image: Cliff Wright)\n<\/p>\n
\n Despite his place in Harry Potter history, Cliff is not overly devoted to the wizarding world.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I wasn’t particularly into the first two books,” he said. “But I did think the third one was a good read and a good page-turner.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Then I got 50 or 60 pages into the fourth book and got bored to death.\n<\/p>\n
\n “So I never read the rest of them.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Long before Hogwarts entered his life, Cliff’s artistic imagination had been shaped by the natural landscape surrounding his childhood home in Newhaven.\n<\/p>\n
\n Growing up on the clifftops, he spent much of his time exploring the countryside and observing wildlife \u2013 interests which have remained with him throughout his life.\n<\/p>\n
\n He began drawing from an early age, despite having no particular family background in the arts.\n<\/p>\n
\n Harry Potter author JK Rowling, who gave feedback on Cliff’s illustrations throughout the process (Image: John Mathew Smith)\n<\/p>\n
\n Between 1982 and 1986, Cliff studied at the Brighton College of Art – now part of the University of Brighton – before embarking on a laborious journey into professional illustration.\n<\/p>\n
\n For more than two years, he travelled regularly to London, sometimes visiting three or four publishers in a single day.\n<\/p>\n
\n One idea in particular \u2013 a children’s book he had written and illustrated himself \u2013 began attracting interest.\n<\/p>\n
\n He eventually secured a deal for When the World Sleeps, which was published in 1989 and was named runner-up for the Mother Goose Award for best debut.\n<\/p>\n
\n Cliff was immediately offered a second book by the same publisher, and never looked back.\n<\/p>\n
\n His artistic talents have also found an outlet in one of Sussex’s most distinctive traditions: Lewes Bonfire Night.\n<\/p>\n
\n Over the years, Cliff has helped create some of the enormous effigies, specialising in caricature heads.\n<\/p>\n
\n Cliff spent a number of years working on effigies for Lewes Bonfire Night, designing heads for figures including Osama Bin Laden\n<\/p>\n
\n Among those he has depicted are Osama bin Laden, George Bush, Peter Mandelson and Gordon Brown.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I loved being involved,” he said. “It’s nice to build something that you give to somebody else who fills it with fireworks and blows it to pieces.\n<\/p>\n
\n “It’s a good way of letting go of your artwork.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But few will know that the man responsible for bringing that magical scene to life grew up on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":820693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-820692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}