Belgium Maester of Prydain: Jean-Leon Huens YA (Young Adult) Book Illustration Style

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Trained on 18 paintings by the Belgium Illustrator Jean-Leon Huens (1921-1962). To see his works, please go to

The first time I saw Huens's work was when I started to read The Chronicles of Prydain, a five part series of children's high fantasy Bildungsroman novels written by American author Lloyd Alexander and published later in the 1970s by Dell Yearling editions.. The series includes: The Book of Three (1964), The Black Cauldron (1965), The Castle of Llyr (1966), Taran Wanderer (1967), and The High King (1968). The Black Cauldron earned a 1966 Newbery Honor, and The High King won the 1969 Newbery Medal.

Huen's unique style fits the series's sometimes somber mood perfectly, with Taran the assitant pig keeper and the lovely Princess Eilonwy featuring in most of the covers. To me these are the definitive covers for the series, with the covers drawn by Jody Lee for later paperback editions in the 1980s and 1990s a distant second (her style is lovely, but does not fit the somber atmosphere of the series).

Huens was apparently quite prolific, but unfortunately there are not that many of his works online. I found this wikipedia entry, originally written in Dutch I believe (I cannot read it, so I am not sure):

https://vls.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-L%C3%A9on_Huens

Jean-Leon Huens (1 December 1921 – 24 May 1982) was a Belgian illustrator.

The name Huens does not say much to most people, but many Belgians who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s do know the illustrations that Jean-Léon Huens made for the Lands Glorie series. His bykan produced 550 works in postcard format on the highlights and most important figures of Belgian history. Many young people in his time were encouraged to learn more about history by fantasizing about Huens's romantic, realistically drawn pictures. Between 1949 and 1961, the six volumes were published by Historia, founded in 1946 by Jean-Léon Huens and his brother Etienne. Each album can contain 80 to 100 sandbags that Historiapuntn trackers can exchange. Under the pictures is a short text by historian Jean Schoonjans, professor at the Facultés Universitaires Saint-Louis in Brussels. The historical interpretation came from the Ghent historian Henri Pirenne.

The history of Belgium of Huens and Schoonjans was divided into three major periods over two books each:

  • The Belgian People: From the Beginning to the 15th Century

  • The Belgian Stoat: From the 15th to the 18th Centuries

  • The Kingdom of Belgium

Jean-Leon Huens has also illustrated for the publishers Casterman, Marabout, Desclée De Brouwer and Durendal. He has drawn covers for the weekly magazine Tintin (Kuifje) and greeting cards and calendars, published by well-known printing houses such as De Schutter in Antwerp.

From 1962, he focused on the American market, due to lack of interest in his own country. Work by him has been published in the Saturday Evening Post, Readers' Digest and National Geographic Magazine.

On June 20, 2002, twenty years after his death, Jean-Léon Huens received the Hall of Fame Award, by the Society of Illustrators in New York. Doadoure is inducted into the International Hall of Fame of Illustrators.

On 1 September 2005, the Royal Military Museum in Brussels opened the exhibition "'s Lands Glorie. (The history of Belgium through the paintings of Jean-Léon Huens)", until 31 March 2006 in the framework of "175 years of Belgium".

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