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Ronald William Kirby acquired the nickname "Josh", after Sir Joshua Reynolds, at the Liverpool City School of Art, where he was already a talented portrait painter. After a fairly successful start in commercial portaits, especially for movie posters and publicity, he realized that he preferred book covers, particularly fantasy and science fiction. These allowed for a large input of imagination, and allowed him to work in the styles of his favorites, Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder. His first cover was for a sci-fi novel in 1954 and he remained popular for the rest of the millenium, painting hundreds of covers. He exhibited across England and in Germany and was voted Best SF Artist at the 1979 World SF Convention.

He was, then, well known when Corgi Books asked him to provide the cover for The Colour of Magic. Josh made a habit of reading the book first (not a universal practice, apparently,) and showed a lot of the character of the story and cast in his busy and elaborate, but cartoonish paintings. His depictions were often wildly at odds with the author's descriptions, yet the characters were immediately recognizable and the mood of the scene would come through. He created every Discworld cover for Corgi for nearly two decades thereafter, and collaborated on the large-format edition of Eric. He also published several portfolios and books of Discworld and other paintings.

Kirby was born 27 Nov 1928, in Lancashire and lived latterly near Diss, Norfolk, in a house with multiple studios and many of his original paintings, which he preferred to keep. He died in his sleep on 23 Oct 2001.

A catalog of Josh Kirby's work can be found at [1]

...quick, thus the line should go.

Ay, but the soul! He's Rafael! Rub it out! ...Andrea del Sarto