Connections: Gustav Klimt and Robert Foster (and Jim Steranko)

Here’s another paperback that I purchased at a recent church rummage sale:

[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]

Now, that’s a very strong cover, no doubt, but I think that anyone who is familiar with the work of Gustav Klimt will tell you that the composition of Foster’s illustration owes a clear debt to Klimt’s Medicine (1901), a large-scale ceiling painting that was destroyed in a fire started by the Nazis and is known to us only by a black-and-white photograph of the finished work and a small colour preliminary:

Although at first glance you might be tempted to conclude that, in addition to being inspired by Klimt’s composition, Foster flat-out swiped the figure of the woman suspended in space in the upper-left-hand quadrant of Klimt’s painting, I think a closer comparison of the two figures suggests that what Foster actually did was hire his own model and instruct her to strike a pose similar to one Klimt chose for his model.

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BONUS IMAGE (Added 21 October 2012):

Just came across an illustration (with collage elements) by Jim Steranko, published in 1970, that obviously shares a strong family resemblance with the cover illustration by Foster, published in 1968, featured above:

[CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE]

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BONUS IMAGE, TOO (Added 27 October 2012):

I definitely think Foster shot his own reference for the figure of the floating woman in the New Writings in SF4 cover:

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Keywords: New Writings in SF4, Infinity One, Thorns.