Connections: Frank Frazetta (1976) and The Brothers Hildebrandt (1980)
Tag: The Brothers Hildebrandt
Look Here: The “Three Damosels” trilogy with cover art by the Brothers Hildebrandt
Way back in high school, I briefly became interested in the work of the Brothers Hildebrandt, although I must say, even though I spent my very own hard-earned money on Urshurak and The Art of the Brothers Hildebrandt, I could never quite muster the same enthusiasm for them that I had — and still, in a much-qualified sense, have — for Frazetta.
The following three covers are typical of the style of the Brothers Hildebrand in the late 1970s. The influence of N.C. Wyeth is obvious here, but once one discovers the work of Wyeth himself, the art of the Brothers Hildebrandt simply will not do…
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ABOVE: Vera Chapman, The Green Knight (NY: Avon, 1978), with cover art by the Brothers Hildebrandt.
ABOVE: Vera Chapman, The King’s Damosel (NY: Avon, 1978), with cover art by the Brothers Hildebrandt.
ABOVE: Vera Chapman, King Arthur’s Daughter (NY: Avon, 1978), with cover art by the Brothers Hildebrandt.
Connections: John Newton Howitt (1934) and The Brothers Hildebrandt (1979)
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Look Here: The “Fall of the Towers” trilogy times two
More paperback covers, scanned by yours truly…
First up, here are the covers that the folks at Ace Books designed for their 1970s reprint of Samuel R. Delany’s “Fall of the Towers” trilogy, which was first published in the early 1960s; the pretty, staid cover art is by the Brothers Hildebrandt, who at the time were generally fairly adept at colour mixing for various lighting conditions but not especially good at designing futuristic or alien cities that didn’t look like conglomerations chess pieces (or monsters that didn’t look like slightly modified versions of plastic toys; see, for instance, the cover of Epic Illustrated #5):
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In contrast, in the UK in the late 1960s, the “Fall of the Towers” trilogy was published by Sphere with relatively adventurous cover art by Russell FitzGerald, although I must say, the artist’s ambition here seems to me to have been tightly hobbled by his weak draftsmanship and indifferent painting technique:
FitzGerald’s work was later featured in and on the cover of the inaugural issue of the SF paperback quarterly Quark (1970), which was edited by Delany and Marilyn Hacker. I know I have a copy of Quark #1 somewhere around here, but damned if I know where it is at the moment… not that it matters, because the cover of Quark #1 is terrible…
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