I was thinking about portraits the other day, partly because of the “Making Faces” show currently going on at the Society of Illustrators, partly because I had just received a copy of Brian Movies that features Iain McCaig’s portrait of Harlan Ellison on the cover, partly because I noted the sale at auction recently of what, to me, was a not-terribly-good painting of Robert Silverberg by the late Ed Emshwiller.
What makes a successful portrait, particularly when the subject is a writer? The answer that immediately comes to mind is: personality. If the artist is able to capture something of who the writer is, not merely what they look like, and elicit responses from viewers and which prompts conversation… then there’s a good chance of creating art, not just a painted version of Glamour Shots.
Now, I’ve never really heard of any controversy surrounding a genre writer’s portrait; certainly nothing like the brew-ha surrounding John Singer Sargent’s painting of Madame Gautreau aka “Madam X.” The flip-side is that I’ve heard very few people say anything positive about some of the clever SFF writer portraits that have been done… so I think I’ll point out a few.
H.P. Lovecraft
H.P. Lovecraft has been drawn many times over the years, one of the earliest being the one above by Virgil Finlay. Moore recently by Matt Buck, John Picacio, and Roberto Parada below.
Isaac Asimov
Michael Whelan‘s portrait of Isaac Asimov. Since Asimov devised the Three Laws of Robotics, Isaac’s AI companion is appropriate.
Jules Verne
Edgar Allan Poe
Above, a pair of scratchboard pieces by Mark Summers: Jules Verne and Edgar Allan Poe respectively. Below, Michael Deas‘s portrait of Edgar Allan Poe for the U.S. Postal Service won a Spectrum silver medal.
Theodore Sturgeon
Rowena Morrill’s painting of Theodore Sturgeon. Sturgeon joked at the time that she had made him look too puny.
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Below, a pair of portraits of Tarzan’s dad, Edgar Rice Burroughs; the first is by Reed Crandall, the second by Tom Lovell.
Robert A. Heinlein
Donato’s and George Barr painting of Starship Trooper, Robert A. Heinlein
J.R.R. Tolkien
Greg and Tim Hildebrandt transported J.R.R. Tolkien to Middle-Earth for this painting.
George R.R. Martin
A Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin as painted by Anita Kunz.
Harlan Ellison
A pair of portraits of Harlan Ellison; the top a classic Bosch-inspired painting by Leo and Diane Dillon, the bottom is a mixed-media work by Iain McCaig.
Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman, painted by life-long collaborator Dave Mckean.
Frank Herbert
Frank Herbert, author of Dune, by Greg Manchess.
Stephen King
Ursula K. Le Guin
Jonathan Lethem
Kurt Vonnegut
David Levin created hundreds of drawings for the New York Times Book Review like the ones seen above.
Mark Twain
Mark Twain, recently commemorated on a U.S. Postage stamp by Greg Manchess and earlier drawn by Leo and Diane Dillon.
Anne Rice
Anita Kunz‘s painting of Anne Rice.
Ray Bradbury
And finally, the illustrated man, himself, Ray Bradbury as painted by Ed Emshwiller and Dean Ellis.
Expanded from the original article on Muddy Colors.
Arnie Fenner is the co-founder and editor of Spectrum: Fantastic Art.
Greg Manchess’ stuff never fails to amaze me; just what he can portray a few thick, chunky brush strokes…
What a facinating collection of illustrations (and of some of my favorite science fiction authors, too). So nice to see these all in one blog — thanks for collecting them.
~Duncan
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Illustrator for HarperCollins, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, ILEX, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Moonstone Books, Enslow Publishers, and many other presses and self-publishing authors. http://DuncanLong.com/art.html
That’s great, Duncan.
Anyone else have any? Pros and post-it-note dooders welcome.
Lovely selection! Here’s my contribution, Mr. Philip K Dick:
Some great works here! I’d also mention the portraits that Alex McVey did of Stephen King and Joe R. Lansdale (www.alexmcvey.com).
Here’s my own ink work, “Cthulhucraft”, that I did for Lovecraft’s recent birthday:
Russell, the link to your Lovecraft portrait didn’t work.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a portrait of CJ Cherryh on a DAW paperback. Anyone remember which one?
I’m surprised to see no Freas, but I can’t think of any author portraits by him. Anyone know whether he did any?
@10: To get the Lovecraft portrait to come up, drag the link up to your address bar.
And here’s my own contribution, a portrait of HP Lovecraft:
Wow, a lot of iconic images, here, particularly the Dean Ellis portrait of Ray Bradbury, which has stared out at me from many a Bantam paperback.
NancyLeibovitz (@10) – The cover with C.J. Cherryh is on her collection Visible Light (DAW, 1986), painted by David Cherry, her brother.
Also, two minor “oops” – the pen-and-ink caricaturist is David Levine (with an ‘e’), and his work is most associated with the New York Review of Books (mundane twin to the New York Review of Science Fiction).
Thanks Nancy! I’m not sure what the deal is with that, it should work. Here’s the link to the post on the site for it, this one should work: http://www.rhdickerson.com/2011/08/20/ink-cthulhucraft/
Great idea. I can think of others – Whelan’s portrait of Heinlein for Grumbles from the Grave, and multiple instances of portraits of Harlan being incorporated in cover artwork by the Dillons. One correction – the portrait of Ray Bradbury was done by his frequent collaborator Joe Mugnaini, not Ed Emshwiller. It was originally for the special Bradbury issue of F & SF, and was subsequently used for the dustjacket of Jerry Weist’s Bradbury: An Illustrated Life.
Doh! Larry, you are absolutely correct: the Bradbury is definitely by Mugnaini, not Emsh. Since I have Jerry’s Bradbury book sitting on my shelf, I was obviosuly experiencing a Senior Moment while typing credits. Another correction is that the new Ellison book is Brain Movies, not Brian Movies…
The October 1952 issue of Galaxy magazine has protraits of several then active science fiction and fantasy writers and artists. Among them: Fritz Leiber, Heinlein, Chesley Bonestell, Sturgeon, Kamon Knight, H.L. Gold, Willy Ley, Bradbury and Asimov.