Victor Ambrus, illustrator, 1935-2021
March 22, 2021 10:02 AM   Subscribe

The prolific artist Victor Ambrus, who illustrated nearly 300 books during his sixty-year career, and brought archeology to life for twenty years on the tv show Time Team, has died. A good obituary in the Guardian; an extensive obit by a fan covers his youth in war-torn Hungary, his early influences, escape on foot from Soviet troops (as a refugee he chose England because of the English illustrators he had admired), and his later work. Video tribute from Time Team.
posted by LobsterMitten (20 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
He passed away in February but I only just heard about it now. There was a brief Time Team announcement on their Twitter.

People in the twitter hashtag VictorAmbrus sharing more images of his work.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:08 AM on March 22, 2021


I discovered Time Team last summer and binge-watched a whole lot of it. Victor Ambrus was one of the best parts of the show, his artwork not only bringing history to life but often doing so with subtle humor in his depictions.

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posted by biogeo at 10:14 AM on March 22, 2021 [4 favorites]


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posted by doctornemo at 10:33 AM on March 22, 2021


Time Team was my childhood and I always loved the quiet, passionate, sensitive and skilled man that Victor came across as. Rip!
posted by Balthamos at 11:41 AM on March 22, 2021


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posted by orrnyereg at 12:28 PM on March 22, 2021


I heard about this in February, but didn't think to post and I'm glad someone did. I do remember the one season on Time Team where they had Victor using a fairly early computer drawing tablet. He seemed rather unhappy about it and I was thrilled to see him back the next season with his pencils.
posted by sfred at 12:29 PM on March 22, 2021


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posted by adekllny at 12:45 PM on March 22, 2021


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posted by Tsuga at 12:52 PM on March 22, 2021


Artistically speaking, he was kindred and peer to the Czech paleontological illustrator Zdenek Burian.They both paid great attention to historically accurate detail.
posted by y2karl at 12:53 PM on March 22, 2021



posted by bz at 2:13 PM on March 22, 2021


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posted by cupcakeninja at 4:02 PM on March 22, 2021


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posted by acb at 4:28 PM on March 22, 2021


I love his work. RIP.
posted by Liquidwolf at 5:30 PM on March 22, 2021


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posted by Canageek at 6:08 PM on March 22, 2021


The Time Team tribute was really sweet. I was shocked to see how -old- they’ve all gotten. Except Carenza.
posted by janell at 8:34 PM on March 22, 2021 [1 favorite]


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posted by k8bot at 9:28 PM on March 22, 2021


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posted by Lynsey at 8:37 AM on March 23, 2021


I loved Victor's work, loved Time Team. In fact I binge-watched most of it over the holiday break once I discovered that Prime had it! I watched it every week while I still lived in the UK, and gotten out of the habit here in the US due to difficulties in finding it on terrestrial TV.

Like MIck Aston before him, Victor will be sorely missed. RIP
posted by speedingpullet at 12:27 PM on March 23, 2021


I never watched Time Team, but his illustrations are so familiar to me from childhood - books I owned, and books I borrowed again and again from the library. The Puffin Book of Magicians. Dracula. Blackbeard. The tales of Shakespeare.

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posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 1:02 PM on March 23, 2021


Oh no!!! That man could *really* draw a roundhouse. Thanks for linking the fan obit - I knew somehow that he wasn't Completely British, but I never figured out that he was Hungarian.
posted by All hands bury the dead at 3:10 PM on March 23, 2021


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