John Schoenherr

This is the first appearance of DUNE as it was serialized in Analog magazine, cover date - December 1963, photographed in front of 5219 39th Avenue in Queens.

I've been by this house hundreds of times. It's five, short blocks from where I've lived for the past 20 years! I never knew until just recently that it was where John Schoenherr grew up and worked before moving with his young family to rural New Jersey. The first visualization of DUNE was painted in his studio-  in that house. 

So was this: It's his second book cover, and a favorite of mine. 

So were these: Both originally covers for Analog magazine, but I knew them from the book TOMORROW AND BEYOND.

I couldn't quite believe it when I learned that the home he grew up in was so close to me. It was a wonderful, serendipitous discovery facilitated by some random web browsing, and a conversation with his son Ian, via twitter. John Schoenherr is easily one of my favorite illustrators of science fiction, and an inspirational influence. It was the Illustrated edition of DUNE I bought at B Dalton's in the summer of 1978 and read. Schoenherr's art left an impression on me equal to the novel itself. He painted starkly and powerfully. With a keen eye for color, lighting and mass, he made big statements without a lot of fussy detail.

His black and white work was just as stunning and dramatic.

For all of that, some of his best work, and from what I've read, the most dear to him was his wild life artwork. Perhaps it was his fondness for wildlife that made his aliens so convincing.

I'll end with the last page from the Caldecott Medal winning book OWL MOON:

Now when I go by 5219 39th Avenue, I always refer to it as the "Schoenherr house".

Ian Schoenherr's blog

Ian's blog devoted to John Schoenherr

drawing from memory

When I'm working in the world of my alien menagerie, I often draw from nostalgic inspiration in some form or other.

I was recently browsing through some older sketchbooks of aliens, and this particular one caught my eye. When I sketched this, I was working from the memory of a toy I once had.  I wasn't trying to recreate it, so much as see how it might inspire something of my own. It was a rubber finger puppet that I remember getting at checkout in a grocery store when I was five or six.  I had a pretty clear image of how it looked, but I had know idea what it was called or how to find it either. 

In the time that's past since I made that sketch the mystery of it's inspiration was resolved.

It turns out the finger puppet was a RUBBER UGLY.  RUBBER UGLIES were a spin-off of UGLY STICKERS- the rubber monster on the left was based on the sticker pictured at right. Artwork by Norm Saunders.

I wrote about UGLY STICKERS in an earlier post. They were also another memory from childhood that I couldn't quite pin down. The images were vivid, but the name of them…not so much.  

It was the publication of a book of Norm Saunders work, and the additional discovery of a website devoted to him, that connected names with the images I remembered. Two mysteries solved at one time.

~ here's alien menagerie x.30 

acrylic on Arches 300 watercolor paper 8" x 10"

Paul Lehr

How has your summer been? 

I've been working on some new alien menagerie pieces, but I thought I'd share some artwork from one of my illustration heroes, Paul Lehr. 

I haven't had the luxury of collecting many pieces of original art, yet his is one of the few that I own. It's the cover for the paperback anthology BEST SF STORIES FROM NEW WORLDS 4.  

This is the way science fiction looks to me, moody, and suggestive. It's also a mixture of narrative and surreal. His use of color is masterful, creating a rich, strange atmosphere. I learned the power of analogous color palettes looking at his work.  The covers I've selected to show are all scanned from books I read when I first discovered the genre.

Perhaps he was a better artist than illustrator, but looking back at these covers, I'm reminded of how much easier it is for me to hang on to a striking cover image, long after the details of the story has left me. 

Paul Lehr was a student of Stanley Meltzoff at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He began painting covers in 1957 working in oils on top of casein, but in the early 60's switched to Designer's colors, and later acrylics. His work evolved as well, away from the influence of Meltzoff, developing his own unique and powerful voice. He was most prolific in the late 60's and early 70's having a commanding share of book covers within the genre.

Paul Lehr passed away in 1998, and it's one of my regrets, that I never met him.

Here's a Tumblr link for more of Paul Lehr's work:

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/paul+lehr

Lehr is one of the six artists featured in the VISIONS OF NEVER by Patrick and Jeannie Wilshire. You can find it here at amazon.com

Yoko d'Holbachie at AFA

Yoko d'Holbachie's work is a psychedelic wonderland populated by phantasmagoric creatures. Her subjects describe a dream space that I can easily appreciate. Frankly, I feel like there's some shared inspirational dna at work here. 

I'm not entirely sure how I first discovered her work, but I only have to look in a folder of her art that I've saved to my computer to discover when that was, October of 2009. Three paintings from the 2009 Hi-Fructose group show that year at Copro Nason, and three more from a mini show at Roq La Rue. In November of 2009, the London Miles Gallery hosted a solo show of her work, under the title "Living in your Dreams"

Until recently, I've only seen a few pieces in person as part of various group shows here in New York. I've had to rely on the internet to see what's shown at various other galleries around the world. It's been an impressive amount of work in total though! She's certainly been working diligently.

Last week, her first solo show in the US opened at the AFA gallery in Soho. "My Strange Goddess"  features 13 new pieces on panel, and 15 smaller works on water color paper. She's working in acrylics favoring the non-toxic aspects, and the quicker work time. "Regeneration" is my favorite of the selection, but they're all charming, surreal visions which stare back at you through their many varied (and unmatched eyes). The images I've collected here are from the show.

I was also happy for the opportunity to meet Yoko as she'd travelled to New York for the opening!

The exhibition runs through May 20th.
I'm sure I'll go back for another look.

If you're not in NYC, you can see the show at the exhibition mainpage on AFA's website here

Yoko's website is here