Title: Bizarre Birds & Beasts

Publisher: Pavilion Books Limited, London UK

Publication Date: 1991

Binding: Hard Back/Hard Cover

Book Condition: Very Good /Near Fine

Dust Jacket Condition: Dustjacket Near Fine

Edition: First edition, first issue.

Signed: Signed by author/artist

30 pages.  Full page colour illustrations. Flourishing ink inscription on front free endpaper "To Ron from James". Signed "James Marsh" in flourishing ink hand on title page. 23 x 23 cm. Original grey cloth, complete with unclipped, colour, illustrated dust jacket.

James Marsh is an English ,  and . He studied design and display at the Batley College of Art & Design, and graduated with an National Diploma in Design and college diplomas. He is also a founding member of the .

Notable works by Marsh include  magazine covers, neo-surreal cover paintings for paperback reprints of  books and cover art for all of the studio albums released by the English band .

In 1982, he first appeared in Who's Who in Graphic Art, published by Graphis Press in Zurich, Switzerland. In 1991, his first book, Bizarre Birds & Beasts, was published by Pavilion Books (UK) and Penguin Books (US). In 2003  newspaper named him one of the "Top Ten Leading British Illustrators". From 2012 to 2014, Marsh was invited to create the branding for the  festival in Rennes, France.

In 2015, Marsh was inducted into the Album Cover Hall of Fame in the US.

Provenance: from the Library of modernist abstract artisit Ron Hitchins (1926-2019), purchased from his estate & from his Malvern Road, London E8 house in 2021.

Hitchins had a successful first one-man show at the Whibley Gallery 60, George Street, London W1 in 1965.

Hitchins’ work is held by the Glasgow School of Art and at the Rose Lipman Library, Hackney & a bronze bust of Hitchens was cast by friend, Canadian sculptor, Maryon Kantaroff (1933-2019) who in 1992 received the prestigious President's Award of the Sculptors Society of Canada.

In 1960 the BBC’s Monitor arts show transmitted the 23 minute documentary, “The Light Fantastic”, directed by Ken Russell, written & presented by Hitchins. It tells Hitchins’ personal story from Cockney barrow boy to professional Flamenco dancer. In 2019 Chris Gomez of Reach Extra updated the documentary sequences with recent footage of Hitchins, living his whole life in the East End of London and dancing into his eighties.