The world has lost another of its legendary painters, and one that so strongly influenced my young artist’s life. Frank Frazetta passed away yesterday, having released more passion on canvas than might be humanly possible.
I used to ride my bike to a Cincinnati bookstore in the 60’s. There, amidst the incense-infused lower level, tucked away in the corner, they kept the science fiction books. I was probably about ten when I first recognized the outstanding mayhem on a paperback cover as a Frazetta. The painting stood out immediately because it was so bold, and the light in the painting felt so damn real. I didn’t care that it was a barbarian, or some giant beast, or some curvaceous half dressed goddess. (ok…maybe a little on that last one). It was so believable, all I could do was stare, and absorb.
It was different from the covers around it because in the 60’s, most of the science fiction covers had a strong, colorful graphic approach, and occasionally, manipulated photos. But this was painting. This was museum painting. Classical painting. Sunlit flesh popped off of dark mysterious backgrounds. And all of it applied to my favorite subjects.
I was one of those guys that didn’t care about what was in the book. Who cared with a cover like those? I rode my bike home with my mind spinning up all kinds of crazy stuff. That was all I needed.
Frazetta touched those male nerves waiting skin deep to leap into life; he sparked the very visceral painter lurking inside me. Power seethed under my Cheerios-induced boyhood muscles. Those paintings inflamed my head and drove my energy forward into art camp.
I returned to that bookstore month after month to see more and more. I, like many, bought the book for the cover. But as a budding painter, I studied them. I stared and stared. I dreamt. My heart pulsed waves of creative maniacal wicked wild storms of expression. Charged. Intense. I burned up miles on that bike like a super collider in full swing.
I read about legendary heroes of folklore, myth, and history, in school. I understood the heroes and the legends, but Frank could make you feel it. He wanted you to feel what he felt. He let you have it, too, right in the guts.
I believed legends are created, not born. So I read about Frank, the man. Hard to separate the art from the artist, he lived out his worlds in paint, from humorous movie posters and ink drawings of Middle Earth, to that crazy barbarian and planets in peril.
Frank Frazetta was one of those guys that informed my work, influenced me no end. Not to paint like him, but to paint as bravely. To paint from the gut.
He was legend.
Gregory Manchess is an American artist and illustrator with a Frank Frazetta-inspired love for polar bears.
What a wonderful memory! And a beautiful eulogy!
He is classic SF.
Bow you heads and weep oh ye mighty ones for the Master now walks in strange roads and shall come this way no more.
Thankyou Greg for a great tribute to a truly inspiring artist.
I wrote this earlier but I’ll share it here too:
…RIP Frank. Your art has touched so many and you’ve been an undisputed cultural touchstone whether most people realize it or not. No one else can ever take your place in history or do what you did so perfectly and savagely. If there’s a heaven may it be populated with buxom babes, primordial beasts, and baseball diamonds.
Thank you Greg.
Thanks, Greg! That was such an excellent, evocative tribute (and now I know where all the polar bears come from :)
Well said Greg.
“Dark Kingdom” turned me on to art, and is the reason I do what I do today. I use to copy it again and again from my older brothers Molly Hatchet album cover when I was very young. The actual album use to hang next to my desk throughout art school and I still have it today. Frazetta really was a true master.
It is a very sad day for illustration.
I wonder if he ever knew how many lives he touched, how many he inspired, how many he taught… just through us pouring over his works night after night, long after we should have been asleep.
Thank you Sir, thank you for all you did and tried to show us.
Frank Frazetta’s art was a great gift to all of us. When was a kid, it was THE look of SFF and seemed to be imitated everywhere.
But nothing is ever as badass as a chariot pulled by polar bears.
Greg, as soon as I saw that you chose the Frazetta polar bear painting, I wondered if that was intentional. I think your polar bears stand up very well to Frazetta’s, and I think he would approve of your choice, “Not to paint like him, but to paint as bravely. To paint from the gut.” Sounds like you learned the right lessons from him.
He will be a legend and my sadness in his death is that I won’t possibly, maybe have a Frazetta cover on a future book, if’n I were to get big enough.
The painting you chose for this piece is probably my favorite of his. I used to have a poster of it in my bedroom. I first fell in love with his work when I saw an ad for his posters in the back of a Wonder Woman comic. IIRC, it was a get 5 posters for $1 deal, and I counted my pennies, went to the post office for a money order and sent off for them. And put them up on my walls displacing a number of star wars posters. In retrospect, my mother was very understanding about it considering I’d just put up a couple posters of more or less topless women.
In Austin, Texas, there is a pizza joint called “Conan’s” that has bunches of Frank’s prints embedded in the lacquer on every table. It’s sort of their trademark.
Sad to hear of his passing. Have been inspired by his work forever.
Seth
A giant upon whose shoulders many of us now in the illustration business stood. He will be missed.
–Duncan Long
=====================
Freelance illustrator for HarperCollins, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, Solomon Press, Fort Ross, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and many other publishers and self-publishing authors. See my cover illustrations at: http://DuncanLong.com/art.html
Lomg live the Master, and his finest collection of Original Gor Cover arts
He was the greatest!
I had a print of his, a warrior-woman with saber-toothed cat, on my wall for years, and my daughter had the Molly Hatchett album…probably still has it. ;-) We both are amateur artists because of Frank. If we ever make it to an afterlife, I want to thank him for opening my eyes!
That’s a very well written and also candid assessment of Frank’s influence over you and, indeed, many of us. The fact that you’ve made such a great name for yourself without imitating this man’s style to success is a testimony to your love of his work as well your desire to work well within the same field. He reminded us all again that an illustrator was more than just a full color ad for the work being illustrated.
He took a lot of liberties and it’s not likely that anyone now or in the near future will get away with that. Still, some great artists have followed in his footsteps by creating images that do stand by themselves, both as illustrations and as works of fine art. While others achieved this before Frank Frazetta he was the artist who reached the largest acclaim (thanks in a big part to how readily available his work was on cheap paperback books covers) and had the style that resonated across social ideologies.
Thank you.
Rick Tucker
Everyone should go out and rent the DVD Frazetta: Painting With Fire. When I heard of his death the first thing I did last night was to watch it.
Frazetta did for fantasy art what Les Paul did for Rock n’ Roll- he invented the guitar everyone wanted to play. Rock on, Mr. Frazetta, with both hands and all you’ve got.
And let’s all hope the Frazetta museum can reopen.
Excellent tribute Mr. Manchess. My favorite painting by Mr. Frazetta is a very simple painting done on masonite of a girl in a long flowing black dress. Love it. His work (as well as your art Mr. Manchess) keep me inspired to paint.
Greg,
For someone my age, the Frazetta who influenced me most was the artist who drew Lil Abner for Al Capp throughout the 1950s, Daisy Mae, Moonbeam McSwine, Joe Btfsplk, and the Schmoos. In that decade, when Capp was a great satirist and before he became a loon. Frazetta was both sexy and hilarious. I did like his Conan and Burroughs work, but it is the comics that were my first love.
David