Monday, January 22, 2007

John Berkey and John Harris

Stainless Steel Droppings has posted a profile, with lots of pretty pictures, on the Johns, Berkey and Harris -- two of the field's very finest artists.

In the summer of 2004 I was privileged to have attended John Berkey's induction into the Illustrators Hall of Fame. I was quite nervous to meet John and didn't manage to say much more than "hi." Vin di Fate read a wonderful appreciation. "[John Berkey's] signature style is one of vigorously applied brushstrokes -- never labored -- that in a series of strategically placed dots and dashes, form images so vivid and so credible that they seem to go beyond photographic reality, and yet the artist's hand is always present. We look at these illustrations and know that they are paintings -- they are not photographs -- and, more importantly, that they are art." The full essay is reprinted in Illustrators 46.

Here is an earlier post I made on John Harris.

1 comment:

Carl V. Anderson said...

Thanks for the nod, and thank you even more for all the great art you are showcasing on your site. Thanks to yesterday's feature on Jason Chan I have a new desktop wallpaper!

It is not an understatement to say that the work of John Berkey and John Harris not only influenced my early love of science fiction but have helped contribute, especially with Harris' covers for John Scalzi's books, to a resurgent desire to consume new and divergent works of science fiction.