Jackie Morris is an award-winning British artist and author celebrated for her watercolour paintings of birds, animals and myth. Best known for her collaboration with Robert Macfarlane on The Lost Words, she brings a lifelong devotion to the natural world into every brushstroke.
Jackie Morris grew up in the Vale of Evesham, where an early fascination with animals and the natural world set the course for her life's work. She trained at Hereford College of Arts and Bath Academy, and has spoken of a childhood ambition to escape the classroom for a life spent painting, learning the true shape of a bird, and capturing the essence of a living creature the way an alchemist might.
Over a career spanning several decades, Morris has become one of Britain's most celebrated watercolour artists and children's book illustrators. Her work has appeared in the New Statesman, the Independent and the Guardian, and she has collaborated with poet Ted Hughes. She has written and illustrated more than forty books, among them beloved titles such as The Snow Leopard, The Ice Bear, Song of the Golden Hare, Tell Me a Dragon, East of the Sun, West of the Moon, The Wild Swans and The Unwinding.
In 2017, Morris released The Lost Words in collaboration with nature writer Robert Macfarlane, a book that became a cultural phenomenon, campaigning for the return of nature words to children's everyday vocabulary and inspiring "Lost Words" gardens, murals and choirs across the UK. A follow-up, The Lost Spells, was published in 2020. Morris has performed live large-screen painting at major Spell Songs concerts, including at the Royal Festival Hall, the Royal Albert Hall, the Hay Festival and the Natural History Museum.
Her achievements have been widely recognised, including the Hay Festival Medal for Illustration in 2018, and the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal in 2019 for The Lost Words.
Jackie Morris lives and works in a cottage on the cliffs of Pembrokeshire, where the sea, sky and wildlife of the Welsh coast continue to shape her art.
Featured Works
Book of Birds (with Robert Macfarlane): A watercolour and gold-leaf compendium of forty-nine British bird species presently in decline, pairing lyrical natural history with exhilarating, detailed artwork. Seven years in the making, it is both field guide and love letter to Britain's vanishing birdlife.
The Lost Spells (with Robert Macfarlane): A companion volume to The Lost Words, made up of new nature "spell-poems" and paintings celebrating animals, birds, trees and flowers shared with our everyday landscapes, from barn owl to red fox, grey seal to silver birch.
The Lost Words (with Robert Macfarlane): The book that started a movement, twenty "lost" nature words, from acorn to wren, brought back to life through spell-like poems and richly painted illustrations, addressing children's growing disconnection from the natural world.
