Peter Diamond

Peter Diamond is a Canadian illustrator based in Vienna, Austria. He studied Fine Arts at NSCAD University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and has since built a practice working across publishing, editorial and advertising for clients including The New York Times, Wired UK, GQ, Pearl Jam, Magic: The Gathering and Cartoon Saloon, among many others. His work has been exhibited in Europe, North America, Australia and China, and has been published in books by Taschen and Die Gestalten. He is a contributor to the Eisner Award-winning anthology Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream (Locust Moon, 2014). Diamond has received medals from the Society of Illustrators New York, the Society of Illustrators Los Angeles, 3x3, Graphis, Illustrative Berlin, and Autori di Immagini, among other recognitions, and has been honoured with the Joseph Morgan Henninger Award at Illustration West 61 and the Patrick Nagel Award at Illustration West 54.

Diamond's practice is rooted in a sustained engagement with the mythology and epic literature of medieval Britain. Writing in Evil Tender in 2020, critic Chris Jalufka observed that Diamond 'moves beyond the flat plain-speak of medieval artists to bring this body of folklore to the modern age', noting that his illustrations 'capture the visual depth of Gustave Doré, the romance and adventure of N.C. Wyeth, and the realism of John William Waterhouse' (Jalufka, 2020). Works in this vein include illustrations of Culhwch and Olwen and material drawn from the Welsh Mabinogi, demonstrating a familiarity with the Celtic and Arthurian textual traditions that predates and informs his engagement with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

‘Sir Gawain & The Green Knight’ (2029). Mixed media and digital, Underpainting: acrylic ink & colored pencil. Image shared with permission of the artist.

Diamond's illustration Sir Gawain & The Green Knight was produced as a personal work in 2019, described by the artist as 'a celebration of the incredible medieval English poem, one of my favourite pieces of writing' (Diamond, 2019), and published by Black Dragon Press on the occasion of the Thought Bubble comics festival in November of that year. The image was made in mixed media and digital, with an underpainting in acrylic ink and coloured pencil. The composition is striking in its vertical organisation: the Green Knight, mounted on horseback and saturated in a deep chromatic green, dominates the upper register of the image, while Gawain, wearing the distinctive halo of a saint, rendered in warm auburn tones against the surrounding darkness, occupies the lower half, gazing upward. The contrast of scale is deliberate and significant: Gawain is not the triumphant knight of romance tradition but a small figure dwarfed by the encounter he has entered into, the holly and red berries of the Green Knight's attribute scattered across the composition as both decoration and symbol. Diamond's characteristic tendency toward visual density, what Jalufka calls the ability to put 'all corners of the tale in a single panel' is evident throughout, with the image's borders and ground rich with embedded detail. The image is reproduced here with the permission of the artist.

References

Diamond, P. (2019) Sir Gawain & The Green Knight. [artwork] Mixed media and digital. Published by Black Dragon Press, Thought Bubble festival, November 2019.

Diamond, P. (2026) About. [online] Available at: https://www.peterdiamond.ca/about [Accessed 16 March 2026].

Jalufka, C. (2020) 'Peter Diamond and the Awe of Folklore.' Evil Tender, 13 October. [online] Available at: https://eviltender.com/2020/10/13/peter-diamond-and-the-awe-of-folklore/ [Accessed 16 March 2026].