Corinna Sargood is a multi-disciplinary artist whose talents include print-making, illustrating, film animation, puppet shows, children’s theatre, painting, embroidery and etching.

When she was 50, Corinna was commissioned to illustrate her great friend, Angela Carter’s second Virago book of Fairy Tales. She chose to work on the lino cut illustrations from Mexico. ‘Do Mexico for me’, Carter had said, before she sadly passed away at 51.

Corinna went on to spend several months a year in Mexico, setting up home in Las Brujas ‘the Witches’, which was actually quite friendly, save for the odd bullet. Here she formed close connections with her neighbours, furnished her home with hand-built furniture and immersed herself in the many celebrations which mark the Mexican calendar. The influence of these is abundant in her work and collection of folk art.

As a young woman Corinna also spent a lot of time in Italy. Her drawings from her Italian travels were used to illustrate Patience Gray’s iconic culinary memoir ‘Honey from a Weed’, a highly regarded cookery book which hasn’t been out of print since its publication in 1986.

Corinna too is an excellent writer. Her beautifully illustrated travel diaries ‘Journey to the Jungle’ and ‘Village in the Valley’ are vivid, thoughtful page-turners full of historical, social, botanical and culinary detail.

Journey to the Jungle' (1988) details the trip Corinna took to South America with her daughter, Rosy. Sailing down the Amazon they visited a completely isolated tribe, saw the breathtaking Teatro Amazonas in Manaus and discovered a novel use for armadillos... In Peru, Corinna tried alpaca and chewed on coca leaves to combat altitude sickness.