"This day's experience, set in order, none of it left ragged or lying about, all of it gathered in like treasure and finished with, set aside." –Alice Munro, "What is Remembered"
Here are four novels with cover art by Robert Foster that I acquired this spring:
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
Unfortunately, the edition of Davy that you see above is not the one I would prefer to own. The edition that I would prefer to own is the one that shows more of Robert Foster’s artwork and thus doesn’t drain all of the surrealism out of it:
Keywords:The Masks of Time by Robert Silverberg, Davy by Edgar Pangborn, Light a Last Candle by Vincent King, The Burning by James E. Gunn, Robert Foster.
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:
ABOVE: Gustav Klimt, Medicine (1900 – 1907), oil on canvas, 300 x 430 cm. Destroyed by fire in 1945.
ABOVE: Gustav Klimt, Medicine colour preliminary painting (1897 – 98), oil on canvas, 72 x 50 cm.
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.
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:
At first, I just planned to post a couple of covers by Robert Foster, scanned by me from my personal collection of SF paperbacks, but I have since decided that it might be more interesting to trace one warm line up through the chain of influence that led to Foster’s arresting illustrations for the front and back covers of Michael Moorcock’s Behold the Man. So here goes:
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
The typography on the cover of Behold the Man perfectly complements Foster’s painting, don’t you think? The whole package, front and back, is a real stunner!
BONUS IMAGE:
Since I already scanned Foster’s collage-like Alternities cover, I suppose I might as well post that image, too:
One bare foot… hm… perhaps it’s a sign… a symbol of some sort… if only I could think what it means…
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
ABOVE: Robert Kyle, Kill Now, Pay Later (New York: Dell, 1960), with cover art by Robert McGinnis.
ABOVE: Robert Kyle, Some Like It Cool (New York: Dell, 1962), with cover art by Robert McGinnis.
Sorry about the iffy scan on the second one. The book is a little bit warped, so the scanner created and caught a bit of glare.
BONUS COVER SCAN (added 14 August 2010):
This evening, as I was absent-mindedly browsing the paperback shelves in our basement, I came across a cover by an uncredited artist that had something about it that made me want to include it here…
[CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE]
ABOVE: Doris Lessing, In Pursuit of the English (New York: Ballantine, 1966), with cover art by Robert Foster (uncredited/attributed).
Ragged Claws Network 