Graphics > The Many Faces of Harry

THE MANY FACES OF HARRY

J.K. Rowling has said in interviews that ideally, she would not have any illustrations in her books so that each reader can visualize his or her own version of Harry.

However, we are living in an age of images, both moving and still, that are relatively easy to obtain. Think about some history related to graphics: it’s been about 500 years since the printing press was invented, nearly 170 since photography was first perfected, just over 100 since the first motion pictures, just over 50 since televisions were widely sold, 25 years since the first personal computers, and about 10 years since the Internet opened to the public.

Children and even adults are reading Harry Potter books, and they may see scenes like a cinema inside their heads. We are a picture-oriented society. The old cliché says that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” and illustrations do grab attention. Next time you’re riding down the road, see if your attention is caught by some graphic on a billboard. The same applies to books – an eye-catching cover may lead to sales. Many artists have taken up pastels, oils, watercolors and other media to record what they think Harry Potter looks like.

And with the release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone movie, there will be a real, flesh-and-blood version of the boy wizard for millions to see.

So, without further ado and rambling, here is my presentation of “the many faces of Harry.”

In The Sorcerer’s Stone, Rowling wrote of her magic boy: “...Harry had always been small and skinny for his age. He looked even smaller and skinnier than he really was because all he had to wear were old clothes of Dudley’s ... Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all of the times Dudley had punched him on the nose. The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning.” (Quoted from the U.S. edition.)

If there is one thing that all Harry pictures have in common, it is these: (1) lightning bolt scar on the forehead; (2) dark, unruly hair; (3) a skinny body; and (4) black frame glasses with round lenses.

The very first image of Harry to appear was in 1997, when Bloomsbury first released Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. It was drawn by a British artist named Thomas Taylor and showed an astounded, slightly confused Harry eyeing the Hogwarts Express. He was dressed in a school uniform, much like those still worn in the United Kingdom today.

The next picture of Harry was done by Mary GrandPré, an artist from Minnesota, USA who was hired by Scholastic Books to illustrate the retitled The Sorcerer’s Stone. Her conception of Harry is one of the world’s best known, because many European and Asian nations are using her work in the foreign translations. Rowling also has called GrandPré one of her favorite book artists. These U.S. Harrys are also famous because many other artists seemed to follow her lead for drawing the boy. The graphic at left is a closeup from The Goblet of Fire. GrandPré has said that with each year Harry gets older and more confident, the larger his smile gets on the cover. Who knows? By year seven his grin could be so big that he’ll look as if he has a piano keyboard for a mouth.

GrandPré’s visualization of Harry has influenced other artists. They went for the rugby-style shirt, dark pants, tennis shoes and short cape in their artwork as well, despite the fact that Rowling often described Harry as wearing black robes and seemed to imply a boarding school uniform was worn underneath. The one exception, other than the UK covers, was the Iceland cover for The Sorcerer’s Stone, with a passive looking Harry in front of the Hogwarts Express, clad in his school uniform.

The strangest Harry is a tie among Serena Riglietti of Italy and the artists from Finland and the Czech Republic. Riglietti presents a Harry wearing a rat head hat and contemplating a chess move for the Italian Sorcerer’s Stone cover. The hat makes no sense, because Scabbers the rat is Ron’s pet, and the chess game near the end of the novel was with full-sized pieces.

The Finnish artist does a caricature of Harry – that’s a comic strip type picture of someone with really exaggerated features. This Harry, from the Finnish Sorcerer’s Stone, has calculating eyes, a bulbous nose and a suspicious expression. The Finn Harry is as bizarre as Riglietti’s Rat Head Harry.

The Czech artist, Galina Miklinova, chose to depict the Sorting Ceremony near the beginning of the book. The semi-abstract drawing contains inaccuracies and very weird looking people. The Great Hall looks like a dinky chamber, with a teeny table for Dumbledore and all the wizard faculty to share. The Sorting Hat itself, described in the book as a traditional pointed wizard's hat, that is worn, patched and frayed, becomes a top hat here. And the hat has what looks like a lipstick kiss on top, but really may be the Sorting Hat's mouth. In the book the hat's mouth was just a slit in the cloth. Harry himself has a round mouth that makes him look like Mr. Bill, whom older HP fans may recall was a little Play-Doh guy with a "O" mouth who appeared on Saturday Night Live over 20 years ago.

Sabine Wilharm’s German cover Harrys have sly eyes and smart aleck facial expressions. This depiction of Harry, with outstretched wand arm and black cape, is from the Website of Carlsen Verlag, the German Harry Potter publisher. This Harry follows the GrandPré model, with everyday, American-style boy’s clothes with a cape.

Jean-Claude Götting's Harry is more of a true juvenile wizard, who is shown on the French editions only in black robes and pointed hat, and often holding his magic wand. His face is gentle and calm, suggesting a kid who will not panic under pressure. (A side note -- many sources on the Web say Emily Walcker did the French covers, but I have been informed otherwise.)

Alvaro Tapia’s Harry on the Swedish books is a child from a dream world, a true extension of the fantasy realm that Rowling created. The Harry shown here, from The Sorcerer’s Stone, has Hedwig perched upon his shoulder and is actually levitating in front of the Hogwarts Express.

The Harry on the Netherlands editions grants Rowling's wish that Harry would not be shown. His face never appears on these covers, only sihouettes or parts of his body, such as his leg and part of his broomstick on the Sorcerer's Stone cover. This image is from The Goblet of Fire and shows Harry underwater in Hogwarts Lake.

For Spanish-speaking people, there are translations in the Castilian and Catalan dialects available. The Catalan Sorcerer’s Stone features a generic picture of a boy with spectacles, standing by the Hogwarts Express. This Harry is so plain and dull that he could be any boy with round-lensed eyeglasses. The Castilian edition Harry sticks with the long-sleeved, baggy shirt, dark jeans and short cape, as shown in this picture of Harry wielding Godric Gryffindor’s sword against the Basilisk on The Chamber of Secrets.



Rocco, the Brazil-based publisher of a Portuguese translation, had this comic strip Harry on its Web site, on a link that led to printable bookmarks. This Harry is a cartoon, still with the Muggle boy street clothes, a faithful Hedwig in tow, and an uncertain face that looks like a kid who never rode a broom in his life.

With all the success of Harry Potter, it was inevitable that Hollywood wanted to make movies based on the books. Warner Bros. has won those rights, and the production crew for the movies has taken Harry into yet another dimension: real people. Though there is no real Harry Potter, there is now a real boy, selected out of several hundred who auditioned, and 30,000 kids who applied for slots in the cast. Daniel Radcliffe, a 12-year-old with a handful of credits in British productions, is the flesh and blood Harry, as shown in this excerpt from an Annie Leibovitz photo in Vanity Fair magazine (USA). Unlike the jeans-and-baggy-shirt Harrys, once Radcliffe's version gets to Hogwarts, he is in proper English boarding school uniform and black robe. No matter how old this boy will get – he could get married, have kids of his own, have his hair turn gray or fall out – Radcliffe will now always be remembered as Harry Potter. It’s just the way people associate Judy Garland as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.

Before Radcliffe was cast, whoever did the cover art for the Iranian editions also found a real boy, who posed on a broom for a photo that later became part of the clip art mish mash on the cover of The Sorcerer’s Stone. He is the same striped-shirt Harry, with only a cape and no black robe, seen in many other drawings.

So, Rowling has her own picture of Harry, as well as readers all over the Earth. But no matter how people see him, if fans look far enough, they’ll run into other people’s art: very often drawn as a regular looking skinny kid with shaggy black hair, a jagged forehead scar, round glasses and a black cape.