Yes, Tolkien wasn't a professional artist, but his art for the Hobbit really works on many levels, and gives the reader a better idea of what Tolkien had in his fertile and amazing imagination when writing The Hobbit.
Much of the art here has never been seen before. Most versions of the Hobbit have no more than a score of Tolkien's illustrations, if that. A lot of this art was recently discovered among the Master's papers, and now has been digitally scanned and included for your viewing pleasure. (Interesting how few books the Professor wrote but how much background stuff he came up with while writing them, eh?).
True, in some cases, we have several versions of the same scene- several preliminary and then the finished piece. But I think that adds to how Tolkien was developing the scenes in his mind while writing.
Ok, now you know what to get for any LotR fan on your X-mas list