Publications: Reviews

THE ART OF RICHARD POWERS by Jane Frank

Paper Tiger 2001 128pp, £20.00

It must have been an amazing experience to have come across the artwork of Richard Powers (1921-96) for the first time.

Although he first started to exhibit, and received his first book illustration commissions in the late 1940’s, it was with his science fiction paperback covers from the early 1950’s onwards that Powers started to make a wider impact and a name for himself.

At that time, the paperback as a popular publishing medium was still a fairly recent one. In the science fiction field, as in every other, paperback books were even then supplanting the specialist fiction magazines. In his Foreword, Vincent di Fate regards Powers as one of the three “prime movers” of science fiction art: the others being J Allen St John (1872-1957) and Frank R Paul (1884-1963). But they were solidly of the worlds of the sf magazines.

Came Ian Ballantine and his paperback publishing company, and Richard Powers was in the right place at the right time, and with the right attitudes. And so he quickly established himself as one of the leading artists in the sf field. The breezy mixture of surrealism and abstraction that Powers brought to the field must have seemed like a breath -- or a gale -- of fresh air.

Apart from the occasional exception -- for example the Al Sigmond covers for Amazing Stories and Amazing Stories Quarterly in the early 1930’s -- science fiction art had been dominated by a strictly representational outlook. Spaceships, planets, aliens, machines, architecture -- all of the basic themes and concepts of sf were faithfully represented, directly from the text of the fiction, or as a generic inspiration to give a shortcut, default, face to the magazine or book. It was science fiction art because it looked like it.

Richard Powers’ work soon came to define the appearance of the progressive side of the science fiction field. In an often visually conservative genre, he permanently changed its agenda, building on the work of such maverick artists as Sigmond and, in the 1940's, William Timmins, allowing a greater breadth of interpretation. Powers began to produce covers during what is still regarded as the Golden Age of sf paperback publishing -- the early 1950’s saw the publication of much of what is now regarded as classic, as well as the reprinting from their original magazine publications of much still highly regarded sf . And they came to define and represent, to a very great extent, science fiction at its best as it matured and came of age.

To have seen one Powers cover was most definitely not to have seen them all, and his skewed and slant visions revealed disturbing and provocative depths that complemented his given texts. The exaggerated El Greco-like shapes of his humans, their alien quality matched humanity’s ambiguous position in and against the universe. There was a visceral appearance that fitted with the outward appearance of Powers’ spaceships and other technology. People, creatures, and machines -- all are penetrating and penetrative. And there was wonder.

Powers’ vision and technique also served him well for his output of covers for books with a more macabre content.

As well as a stunning selection of book cover art, there is also a generous selection of Powers’ paintings of the world of fFlar. Powers portrayed fFlar in a quasi-series of paintings (usually already existing ones, sometimes up to thirty years old) that showed, in shimmering colour, aspects of the strange, dreamlike world and the lives of its various inhabitants.  

The Art of Richard Powers does not only concentrate on showcasing and commenting on his sf work, although this does form the great majority of the book’s content. Powers’ son, Richard Gid Powers, contributes a biography, illustrated by some of the landscapes and other art that Powers produced in the 1940’s. He also makes it clear that science fiction was not by any means his father’s main interest, and he also produced many covers for classics of American and English literature.

The book concludes with a representative checklist of Powers’ cover art, which shows the wide range of books that he produced work for.

Most sf artists (if they are lucky) end up being represented by a few pages in such valuable books as Brian Aldiss’ Science Fiction Art, and Vincent di Fate’s Infinite Worlds. The Art of Richard Powers shows that Powers easily justifies a whole volume to himself. There are many other artists who also deserve such treatment, and it is to be hoped that Paper Tiger and other such publishers will make it available.

Copyright (c) 2001 John Howard