Virgil Finlay's Women of the Ages
1992
First Published
4.52
Average Rating
147
Number of Pages
Virgil Finlay left behind thirty-five years of fantasy and science-fiction art-work - and a reputation as the most meticulous pulp magazine illustrator of his generation. Finlay sold his first professional drawings to Weird Tales magazine in 1935 and within a year he had established himself as the finest artist in his field. Throughout the 1930's, 40s and 50s, Finlay reigned supreme as the acknowledged master of black-and-white fantasy, science fiction and horror illustration. Women of the Ages offers the best of Finlay's artwork - exquisite line drawings, which display the jewel-like rendering of Finlay's painstaking technique. Women of the Ages features ravishing illustrations from the pages of Weird Tales, Famous Fantastic Mysteries, Startling Stories, American Weekly and many others. This lavish cornerstone collection showcases the work of a unique 20th century artist.
Avg Rating
4.52
Number of Ratings
33
5 STARS
61%
4 STARS
30%
3 STARS
9%
2 STARS
0%
1 STARS
0%
goodreads
Author
Virgil Finlay
Author · 3 books
An American pulp fantasy, science fiction and horror illustrator. While he worked in a range of media, from gouache to oils, Finlay specialized in, and became famous for, detailed pen-and-ink drawings accomplished with abundant stippling, cross-hatching, and scratchboard techniques. Despite the very labor-intensive and time-consuming nature of his specialty, Finlay created more than 2600 works of graphic art in his 35-year career. His father, woodworker Warden Hugh Finlay, died at age 40 in the midst of the Great Depression, leaving his family (widow Ruth and two children, Jean and Virgil) in straitened circumstances. By his high school years, Virgil Finlay exercised his passions for art and poetry, and discovered his lifelong subject matter through the pulp magazines of the era—science fiction, via Amazing Stories (1927), and fantasy and horror, via Weird Tales (1928), beginning to exhibit at the age of 16. By age 21 he was confident enough in his art to send six pieces, unsolicited, to editor Farnsworth Wright at Weird Tales. Once Wright determined that such detailed work would transfer successfully to relatively rough paper the magazine used (they were called "pulps" for a reason), he began buying Finlay's work. Finlay's illustrations debuted in the December 1935 issue of WT, and appeared in a total of 62 issues of the magazine, down to the last issue of the classic pulp in Sept. 1954. He also executed 19 color covers for WT, for issues from Feb. 1937 to March 1953.
