Earlier this month the we sadly lost one of the foremost and talented Fantasy & Sci-Fi Illustrator/Artists of all time, America’s Frank Frazetta who passed away on the 10th of May aged 82. Franks career spanned an almost unbelievable 60+ year’s when he started working in the comic book industry aged just 15, initially providing pencil clean-ups he soon progressed to drawing comics an by the 50’s was producing work spanning a raft of genres including Western, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Historical Drama. Later a spoof Illustration of Ringo Starr for MAD Magazine would bring Frazetta to Hollywood’s attention and he was soon producing Poster artwork, the first of which for the 1964 feature “What’s New Pussycat?” earning him $4,000 – then a years salary for an afternoons worth of work!
Frank’s commercial work was primarily rendered in oils, but he also worked in watercolours, Ink’s and Pencils – examples of which I’ve included above – a style which incorporates brooding compositions of ultra-defined muscular heroes and heroines, always poised for or in mid-action. Other telling trait’s include tattered flailing clothing, powerful ornate armour and weaponry, all beautifully lit beneath apocalyptic skies…
Read more about Frank: his obituary at The Gaurdian.co.uk http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/may/13/frank-frazetta-obituary
or at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Frazetta
Sketch by Frank Frazetta
Sketch by Frank Frazetta
Sketch by Frank Frazetta
Sketch by Frank Frazetta
Sketch by Frank Frazetta
Sketch by Frank Frazetta
Sketch by Frank Frazetta
Sketch by Frank Frazetta
Sketch by Frank Frazetta
Sketch by Frank Frazetta
Sketch by Frank Frazetta
Sketch by Frank Frazetta
Sketch by Frank Frazetta
Tags: Frank Frazetta, sketch | 1 Comment »
Frank Frazetta | 1928-2010
Posted: May 11th, 2010 | Author: doug | Filed under: Books, Painting, Quotes
The great pulp painter Frank Frazetta died yesterday. His brushstrokes were the literal entrance into the world of pulp novels when I was a kid. A Frazetta cover would herald the different worlds inside those cheap mass market pages, enthralling me as a suburban kid, reading Robert E. Howard and Lovecraft and others.
He may have been the first artist I actively sought out, not to buy paintings or monograms but to purchase cheap Dell paperbacks with those fantastic luminous covers.
Here are some of his more famous paintings. I will post a collection of his sketches, pencil drawings and pen and ink work which I always favored, maybe because the deftness of his hand was so readily apparent.
Rest in peace, Frank. And thank you.
Note: two great articles in the Los Angeles Times on Frazetta, one by Lance Laspina, the director of Frazetta: Painting with Fire and one by Guillermo del Toro
Wild Ride, Frank Frazetta
When it came to my art, I went my own way and did not follow the trends.
-Frank Frazetta
Flesh Eaters, Frank Frazetta
Captive Princess, Frank Frazetta
By the time I was a teenager, I knew I wanted to be an artist. I was a born draftsman and liked all forms of art, so I just knew that’s what I wanted to do.
-Frank Frazetta
Man Ape, Frank Frazetta
Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving were my big days. I guess I drew more Santa’s, bunnies, and turkeys on blackboards than anyone could count. At the insistence of one of my teachers, my parents enrolled me in the Brooklyn Academy of Fine Arts when I was eight. The Academy was little more than a one floor/three room affair with a total of thirty students ranging in age from eight–me!–to eighty. I still remember the Professor Michele [Michael] Falanga’s look of skepticism as I signed in. He was rolling his eyes and you could almost see the thought balloon over his head, “Oh no! Not another child prodigy!” He sat me down with a pencil and paper and asked me to copy a postcard featuring a group of realistically rendered ducks. When he returned later to see how far I had progressed, he snatched up my drawing exclaiming, “Mama mia!” and ran off waving it in the air, calling everyone over to look at it. I thought I was in some kind of trouble.
-Frank Frazetta
The Destroyer, Frank Frazetta
He [Falanga] died when I was twelve, right about the time he was making arrangements to send me off to Italy at his own expense to study fine art. I haven’t the vaguest idea of whether it would have really affected my areas of interest. I don’t know, but I doubt it. You see, we never had any great conversations. He might look over your shoulder and say. “Very nice, but perhaps if you did this or that…” He spoke very broken English and he kind of left you on your own. I think I learned more from my friends there, especially Albert Pucci. Falanga would look at some of the comics stuff I was doing and say, “What a waste, what a waste! You should be in Italy and paint the street scene and become a very famous fine artiste!” And that didn’t thrill me! After he died the students tried to keep the school going; we had become such close friends that we couldn’t bear to close up shop so we all chipped in and paid the rent and continued to hold classes. I did nude life drawings and still lifes; we’d paint outdoors. It was all totally different from the way I work now, but it taught me a lot about brush technique and perspective and helped me to develop my own style.
-Frank Frazetta
Lost City, Frank Frazetta
When I was about 15 someone in my family introduced me to John Giunta. He was a professional artist who was working for Bernard Bailey’s comics publishing company and he really wasn’t a very personable guy. He was very aloof and self-conscious and hard for me to talk to, but he was really very talented. He had an exceptional ability, but it was coupled with a total lack of self-confidence and an inability to communicate with people. Being around him really opened up my eyes, though, because he was really that good. He had an interesting style, a good sense of spotting and his blacks worked well. You can see a lot of his influence even today in some of my ink work.
-Frank Frazetta
Frankenstein and Dracula, Frank Frazetta
Deathdealer II, Frank Frazetta
Deathdealer I, Frank Frazetta
I hope my work has inspired young artists. I have always tried to maintain my freedom as an artist and I feel it is one of the main reasons I have been successful.
-Frank Frazetta
Conan the Avenger, Frank Frazetta
Chained, Frank Frazetta
Sketch by Frank Frazetta
Caveman Sketch by Frank Frazetta
Sketch by Frank Frazetta
Sketch by Frank Frazetta
Sketch by Frank Frazetta
Sketch by Frank Frazetta
Sketch by Frank Frazetta
Sketch by Frank Frazetta
Sketch by Frank Frazetta
