Last week I wrote about buying a large format book dedicated to the life and art of Mr Richard Powers by Jane Frank. Its title is The Art Of Richard Powers and is published by Paper Tiger, it’s definitely worth grabbing a copy from Amazon or another online retailer;
The book contains hundreds of fantastically surreal paintings, some of which have appeared on the covers of science fiction books. His work spans over forty years, I have Richard Powers covers going back to the mid 1950s and on into the 70s but he continued to work until his death in 1996.
In the first part of this article I called Powers a visionary and likened him to artists such as Salvador Dali and Yves Tanguy, this is no overestimation of his artistic skills which were truly great. His work graces many hundreds of book covers all of which are still highly prized by collectors all over the world.
I have chosen another eight of my personal favourite Powers covers here although keep your eyes open, I have many others which will probably find their way in to other articles from time to time.
A Pail Of Air by Fritz Leiber
1964 – Ballantine Books
The Aluminum Man by G.C. Edmondson
1975 – Berkley Medallion
Hell’s Pavement by Damon Knight
1958 – Banner Books
They Walked Like Men by Clifford D.Simak
1967 – McFadden Books
Imagination Unlimited edited by F. Bleilber & T. E. Dikty
1964 – Mayflower-Dell
Impact-20 by William F.Nolan
1966 – Paperback Library
Creatures Of The Abyss by Murray Leinster
1961 – Berkley Medallion
Way Out edited by Ivan Howard
1963 – Belmont
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Another lovely set of covers, most I’ve never even seen, let alone had in my own collection, I’m so jealous 🙂
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Thanks Bernie, glad you enjoyed them. I’ll have more Powers covers coming up as part of other themes over the next few months so stay tuned and keep your eyes peeled.
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Creatures of the Abyss is excellent. Pretty timeless too. Lovely stuff as always.
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Many thanks Mr Lestaret, glad you enjoyed the covers.
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Richard Powers was wonderful. I think my fave is his Silver Eggheads cover, always makes me smile …
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He was indeed wonderful, I don’t have a Powers cover on my copy of Silver Eggheads so I’ll have to check that. Thanks for the comment.
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I love the way the chap looks like Richard Nixon.. or he does to me!
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Excellent cover, the chap also looks a little like Jack Nicholson! I have the Four Square version on this one.
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He did a brilliant expressive cover for Gather Darkness too, my only disappointment was his cover for Our Lady of Darkness (I did a comparison of the various covers on my blog) and I just didn’t feel the cover worked at all.
he also did a great cover for Day of the Triffids, which though not full of detail, works so so well.
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I’ll have to check those out on your blog, he was very prolific in the 60s and early 70s. He’s definitely my favourite SF cover illustrator and I try to pick up everything I see with a Powers cover for my collection. Thanks again for commenting, look forward to chatting to you again soon I hope.
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well I am having a thorough rummage through yours at the moment! Fascinating!
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Thanks for the kind words.
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I have ordered a copy of the art book, I could not resist
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You won’t be disappointed, it’s a great read and is full of brilliant paintings. Glad to hear you decided to pick up a copy.
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Gets worse, the miller book is in my cross hairs…
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That’s a damn fine book too, I had to nab that a few weeks ago after seeing my friend’s copy.
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I am after the Ed Emsh book to
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Sounds like you have a list there my friend, maybe you should just get them all and be done.
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I wish you two would just stop with the art books 🙂 I have no space here on my boat and in fact will be listing some for sale when I get to them, but reading these comments all that’s going through my mind is “I want, I want” !! 🙂
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Hmm… me too Bernie. I love me a good art book.
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