Nora Fry Lavrin

Born in Liverpool, England and daughter of Ambrose Fry and Lily Thompson, Nora Fry Lavrin was an accomplished artist and dry point illustrator who also used oil and water colors. She exhibited in England and became well known as children’s books and literary works illustrator. She was married to Janko Lavrin (Slovene) a well-known literary critic, professor at the University of Nottingham and was the sister of Maxwell Fry, a distinguished architect and urban planner.
She began her career as a children's books illustrator in 1938. She collaborated with Elisabeth Kyle, Averil Demuth, and Hilda Lewis. A Ship that Flew, with Hilda Lewis as author is perhaps the best known of her illustration collaborations. The most accomplished of her children's books is The Hop Dog, written with Molly Thorp and fully illustrated by her. This book was used as the base for a film by the same name. Her Jugoslav Scenes. Dry Points, was published in 1935 and contains 45 original dry points of the country's coast line, churches, towns and people at the time. The Imperial War Museum holds two of her works, done during the II World War years. Diaries and sketches of her visits to Yugoslavia are held at the Ashmolean Museum. In her late years she illustrated works by Jugoslav authors and translations of Thomas Hardy into Slovene. She is also the author of D.H. Lawrence. Nottingham Connections, a personal account of her friendship with Jessie Chambers, one of D.H Lawrence's characters. She illustrated this book, which appeared in 1986 one year after her death. A full bibliography of her works was compiled by W. Connelly and appeared in Ibis, a publication of the Imaginative Book Society in Vol. 13 (Winter) 1999-2000.