Bruce Pennington was another British Artist whose covers exemplify the more refined nature of the genre in the golden age of late sixties and seventies. He was a master of beautiful landscapes, which combined the best of classical landscape painting with the thrill of the unknown. But he could create monsters too, and this creature - which has obvious connections with a Stegosaur, is one of the best I ever recall seeing. Pennington went to art school in the place I was born and brought up in, but I doubt he remembers the air raids that were my early memories. Perhaps he can recall the bombsites and polio epidemics that were around just after the end of the war. His monster here is not a mile a way from some of the life-size early renderings of dinosaurs to be seen at the nearby Crystal Palace park. This picture - which is only half the full painting - could represent my early impressions of the world in a nutshell. The Crystal Palace Megalosaur originally had spikes all down its back, as seen here - I'm afraid my friends and I broke some of them off when the park was derelict during the war. The flaming sky is the London blitz - which was no myth, I can tell you. And the flying saucer is an incoming Heinkel!

Another artist around the British scene was Eddie Jones, who painted mainstream spaceships that seem to flow on from the pulps of the thirties and forties, but with the added bonus of more advanced reproduction methods. I think he worked in acrylics mostly, and had a penchant for military miniatures in his spare time. Looking at the spaceship in the Jones picture on the right I seem to see some Foss-like effects in the detail of the spaceship.

I wonder where they all are now, twenty years on? I hope to find out, and will add the information to these pages, as well as new artists. Just as the market for SF writing imploded in the mid-eighties, one can only assume that the opportunities for new cover art in the genre became much more limited.

Fantasy art, as seen on the luscious cover on the left still lives on, as one may see on any bookstall. But this one, by Boris Vallejo is a special favourite of mine. It seems to outdo even that master illustrator of the barbarian saga, Frank Frazetta. But that isn't the main reason. It's really because Charlotte Stone, who wrote the book, has a special place in my heart, but that story will be held back for a later time.

Click on Golden-Age at Booklovers logo to buy books with these covers.

Well, those days are done now, but the work lingers on, in dusty shelves, or in second-hand bookshops, where perhaps it rubs shoulders with the Necronomicon.

For the moment I leave you with two pictures I created myself, at the height of that era. The first, on the left, has a lot of Chris Foss in it, plus some of Chesley Bonestell, who will feature on the site in the future. I have a fascination for deserted high-tech artefacts in god-forsaken landscapes, and this was my definitive work on the subject. On the right is a similar idea, but perhaps the scene is a bit too cheerful for my taste these days.

I felt at the time, and still do to some extent, that paradoxically, fantasy was the only really legitimate subject for a realistic figurative style of painting. It couldn't be dismissed as something that "would be easily done with a camera nowadays", as could lots of work. But now I would probably hardly agree that any painting could easily be done with a camera if it is any good.

For more comment on art styles go to Iconolatory.

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