The Tolkien Years Review: The Hildebrandt Art Behind 20 LOTR Magic Cards

Updated November 10, 2026 · Book prices from spiderwebart.com, checked November 10, 2026 · Card prices: TCGplayer market via Scryfall, November 10, 2026 · Photos of our own copy

Long before the Peter Jackson movies, a lot of fans pictured Middle-earth the way the Brothers Hildebrandt painted it. The twins painted the official Tolkien calendars for 1976, 1977 and 1978, and in 1977 they also painted one of the original Star Wars movie posters.

The Tolkien Years is the story of that Middle-earth work, and it’s a richer history than a normal art book. The paintings are only half of it. The other half is how they were made: rough sketches, concept drawings and dozens of photos of the family and friends who posed for every scene. My family in Massachusetts photographed our copy for this review, and three of the pages they shot turned out to be the exact art on Magic: The Gathering cards. More on that below.

The Tolkien Years at a glance

What’s inside the book

• Every calendar painting. All of the brothers’ art from the 1976, 1977 and 1978 Tolkien calendars. Our Shelob page even notes the month it ran: November 1978.
• The sketches that survived. Finished sketches, concept sketches and rough sketches, often printed right next to the painting they became.
• Posing photos from the 1970s. The brothers posed family and friends for every scene, in homemade costumes, and dozens of those photos are in the book.
• A hobbit’s-eye story. Greg Hildebrandt Jr. wrote the text. He posed for all the hobbits in his dad’s and uncle’s calendar art when he was 5, 6 and 7 years old.
• Their later Tolkien work. A back section covers what they painted for Middle-earth after 1978: chess set designs, magazine covers and private commissions.
• Expanded Edition extras. A section called Visions Old and New, with newly found sketches, more commissions and newer paintings. One of them, The Black Riders, comes as a pull-out poster.

What it’s like to flip through

Each big painting gets a full page, and the facing page tells the story of the shoot. Greg Jr. remembers what it was like to be the model, and the posing photos sit next to his text, so you see the kid in the costume and then the hobbit he became.

Two of the stories are worth the price on their own:

• Shelob. For the November 1978 calendar, Greg Jr. lay on the floor wrapped in old rags, playing the hobbit trapped beneath the giant spider. The Shelob model on the studio table was wire, masking tape and papier-mâché. Greg says it was very crude: “coat-hanger wire for legs and marbles for eyes.” The book has the only photo of it that still exists.
• Gollum. The brothers flipped a coin to decide who had to pose for Gollum. Tim “won,” depending on how you look at it, so the book has Tim crouching in his underwear, clutching a real dead fish.

Later sections sit on purple marbled pages, like Commissioned Artwork, where The Ring of Galadriel shares page 126 with three pencil studies for it. The whole book reads like a behind-the-scenes documentary on paper.

The sketches were almost thrown away

The book nearly didn’t happen. The story comes from Jean Scrocco, who has represented the Hildebrandts since 1979 and runs Spiderwebart Gallery.

The morning after she signed her first agreement with the brothers, Jean walked into Greg’s studio and found a pile of paper on the floor about four feet wide, twelve feet long and two feet high. Greg called it trash. It was their original Lord of the Rings sketches, many of them creased, torn, coffee-stained or burned by cigarettes.

Jean spent her first two weeks on that floor, saving every piece she could and storing each one in acid-free paper. Twenty years later she scanned them, and The Tolkien Years was built around them. Greg hadn’t seen the sketches in two decades. As Jean tells it, he laughed and said he had told her she could have the trash, and he didn’t know she’d taken him seriously.

The Magic: The Gathering connection: 20 cards with Hildebrandt art

On November 3, 2023, Wizards of the Coast’s Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth holiday release added 20 borderless cards with the Brothers Hildebrandt’s Lord of the Rings art, most of it from their 1970s calendars. They’re reprints of older Magic cards, numbered 515 to 534 in the Tales of Middle-earth Commander set, and they only came in Special Edition Collector Boosters, in nonfoil and foil. Five of them carry Lord of the Rings names on the card, like Shelob, Whose Lair Is Death.

If you’ve pulled one of these cards, The Tolkien Years is the story behind its art. Our copy has the Shelob painting on page 107, labeled November 1978 Calendar, and it’s the same painting as the Shelob card:

Here are all 20 cards, matched to the painting each one uses. Where the gallery lists the painting’s title, we use it. All 20 nonfoil copies come to about $650 at today’s prices.

Prices: TCGplayer market prices via Scryfall, November 10, 2026. Card prices change daily, so check the live price before you buy.

Where the original paintings are now

Jean’s gallery still sells original art and prints behind several of these cards. As listed on November 10, 2026:

• Worship: the original acrylic painting of The Healing of Éowyn from the October 1977 calendar, $175,000.
• Pact of Negation: a surviving piece of the final pencil drawing of the Balrog, $40,000.
• Kenrith (Théoden): a pencil character drawing of Théoden and Wormtongue for the October 1978 calendar, $10,000.
• Diabolic Intent: a signed, numbered Saruman and the Palantir giclee, $2,000.
• River Kelpie: a signed, numbered Gollum giclee, $1,000.
• Abyssal Persecutor: a Final Battle print of Éowyn and the Nazgûl, $50.
• Seasons Past: a Gandalf Visits Bilbo print, $25. According to the gallery, it was the first painting the brothers made for their Tolkien series.

All 20 Hildebrandt cards

Tap a card to see it on TCGplayer. Five of them show their Lord of the Rings name first, with the Magic name in brackets:

Which edition should you buy?

• For most fans: the $30 Expanded Edition paperback. It’s the one we reviewed. It has all the calendar art, the sketches and posing photos, the Visions Old and New section and the Black Riders poster. It’s an easy gift for any Tolkien or Magic fan.
• For collectors: the signed slipcase edition. It’s the 2001 first edition, a hardcover in a slipcase, limited to 1,000 copies and hand-signed and numbered by both brothers. Jean bought 950 of the 1,000 copies and has about 20 left, at $350. The gallery also lists a copy with two custom sketches by Greg for the same price. It’s out of print, and it doesn’t have the Expanded Edition’s newer section, so some fans buy both.

Ordering in time for Christmas

• Order by about December 17 for UPS Ground delivery before Christmas. The gallery ships every day, but after that only expedited shipping gets it there in time, and that gets expensive.
• NerdSnack reader extra: Jean will add a free 8×10 photo of Smaug to any order. Write NerdSnack in the comments box of the order form.
• Want something one of a kind? Jean also sells original Hildebrandt Lord of the Rings sketches, many of them not in the book. Browse the gallery’s Tolkien collection and her Square store.

The verdict

If the Hildebrandt Middle-earth is the one you grew up with, or you’ve opened one of these Magic cards and wondered where the art came from, get this book. At $30, the Expanded Edition is a lot of Tolkien history for the money: every calendar painting, the rescued sketches and the funny, homemade way the brothers brought each scene to life.

Skip it if you only want art from the Peter Jackson movies. This is the 1970s vision of Middle-earth, bright, theatrical and very much its own thing.

More Lord of the Rings on NerdSnack

• Best Lord of the Rings gifts 2026: 11 picks from $10 to $350
• Lord of the Rings watch order: every movie and show in order
• The 15 strongest Lord of the Rings characters, ranked
• The Lord of the Rings: Circle of Conflict board game
• The best Lord of the Rings LEGO sets, ranked
• Iron Studios’ Sauron Unleashed statue
• Best gifts for nerds 2026: the NerdSnack holiday gift guide

Change log: November 10, 2026: review published with photos of our copy, the 20 Hildebrandt Magic cards matched to their paintings, and the gallery’s November 10 prices.

Disclosure and sources: Spiderwebart Gallery sent NerdSnack a free copy of The Tolkien Years Expanded Edition. The story of the sketches comes from Jean Scrocco of Spiderwebart Gallery. Book details, art listings and prices: spiderwebart.com, November 10, 2026. Card details: Scryfall and Wizards of the Coast. Card prices: TCGplayer market via Scryfall, November 10, 2026. Photos of our copy: NerdSnack. Card images: Wizards of the Coast. Gallery images: Spiderwebart Gallery.

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