There's an exhibition & sale of Bruce Pennington's art at the Atlantis Bookshop, Museum Street, London (UK) at the moment, which includes some of Pennington's art for the Panther Clark Ashton Smith paperbacks. You can actually buy the original for his "Abominations of Yondo" for a mere £3,995! If only I had the money...

There's an online gallery of the exhibit here:

[penningtonexhibition.com]

If only I lived in the UK, and if only I had money...if only...

A few of my favorites were "Enigmatic Harbour," "The Horror Horn," and "Carniveau." And I certainly would not mind owning the original for "Abominations of Yondo" (which, incidentally, is one of my very favorite Smith stories).

I wish I could paint--but the mess and bother always puts me off. For now, I do my painting with words.

Good job with the link, Murray; weird art is always fun!

I know, de gustibus and all that, but I'll always wonder how people can get excited about this sort of stuff when there are such insufficiently known weird artists as Zdzisław Beksinski and Richard Oelze waiting to be discovered.

We get excited about the known weird artists over the unknown simply because we do not know about the unknown ones! Your enlightenment is most welcome.

I am glad that you find the other references of interest.

For the rest, don't mind me, as I tend to be crotchety regarding illustrators and the acclaim they receive, when there are so many, in my view, genuine artists whom no one ever mentions. Oelze nearly starved to death in Paris during the '30's, for instance. I also don't want to hijack the thread away from Pennington, though I'll conclude by saying that his stuff looks awful, to me.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 4 Aug 11 | 07:52PM by Absquatch.

Absquatch Wrote:
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> I also don't want to hijack the
> thread away from Pennington, though I'll conclude
> by saying that his stuff looks awful, to me.


Well, as for the two artists you referenced above, I can't say I care for them much at all. But that's me; chacun à son goût, as they say. We could all spend endless cyberhours discussing artists and their merits or lack thereof, but in the end, all it boils down to is whatever you like, you like, and nobody can take that away from you.

As for Pennington, if I had the money indeed, although the gallery doesn't have my favorite CAS cover, the one for Genius Loci.

Quote:

Well, as for the two artists you referenced above, I can't say I care for them much at all.

Give them more than a cursory glance; they might grow on you. One of the differences between pop culture kitsch, "illustrations", and the like and genuine art is that the latter often takes time fully to appreciate.

Absquatch Wrote:
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> Give them more than a cursory glance; they might
> grow on you. One of the differences between pop
> culture kitsch, "illustrations", and the like and
> genuine art is that the latter often takes time
> fully to appreciate.


Oh, I was slightly more than cursory. Believe me, there is plenty of "genuine" art, as you call it, that I fully appreciate. It's just that at my age, I know my own tastes well enough to be able make a determination fairly quickly concerning what I like. Something either grabs me, speaks to me, or it doesn't it, and if it does, I will consider it more carefully. If it doesn't, I don't have the time to wait around for it to grow on me...rolling stones, you know.

I must agree that I find some of Pennington's art kitchy. But there are elements in it that are very good. And he is colorful and uninhibited, qualities to be commended. My favorite book cover of his is for A Princess of Mars, colorful and yet subtle, with interesting and amusing anatomical details. His skill for landscape and sky painting can't be denied either.

The creature on the exibition poster reminds me of expert stop-motion artist Jim Danforth's beetleman in the spoof movie Flesh Gordon.

Another "insufficiently known artist" is John Martin, who CAS appreciated. Tiny humans in erupting landscapes. Notice those giant cliffs upside-down underneath the heaving Earth. Quite impressive! Maybe these inspired some of CAS's own perspectives, and stories, such as "The Red World of Polaris" and "The Metamorphosis of Earth" (I can't remember what happened in this one, but judging from the title).

Thanks for that link. I had never heard of Martin, and those are some impressive works. Thundering landscapes! An early precursor to surrealism. Some of them are almost Dali-like...or should I say Dali was almost Martin-like?