Look Here: Four “Carter Brown” covers by Robert McGinnis

Scanned from the mouldering vintage-paperback library of yours truly, here are four “Carter Brown” covers by Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame inductee Robert McGinnis (1926 – ), everyman’s favourite pulp-paperback cover artist:

First interesting fact about McGinnis: his preferred medium for his cover paintings wasn’t oil, or watercolour, or gouache; rather, it was, and still is, egg tempera. Second interesting fact: McGinnis seldom drew from life but instead took photographs of models (etc.), projected them onto the painting surface, and traced the resulting images, clarifying the forms where necessary, and elongating and adjusting the limbs and features according to his distinctive sense of proportion and beauty. McGinnis very briefly demonstrates his working methods in a DVD entitled Robert McGinnis: Painting the Last Rose of Summer, which is not a painting video at all but rather a documentary overview of McGinnis’s career as a commercial artist and painter.

Keywords: The Wind-up Doll, Had I But Groaned, Blonde on a Broomstick, Blonde on the Rocks.