John Schoenherr

John Carl Schoenherr (July 5, 1935 – April 8, 2010) and studied art at the Art Students League of New York with Will Barnet and at Pratt Institute.

Career Dune Schoenherr may be known best as the original illustrator of the dust jacket art of Dune, a 1965 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert that inaugurated a book series and media franchise. He later did the art for the Analog serialization of Herbert's Children of Dune.

Other works Schoenherr was also very well known as a wildlife artist and children's book illustrator, with over forty books to his credit. Most of his black-and-white illustration work used the scratchboard technique, and he was long known as the only commercial artist who specialized in it. His paintings were often egg tempera, another unusual medium. Schoenherr also completed paintings for NASA. Schoenherr's knowledge of zoology was very useful in creating alien creatures. He was a member of the American Society of Mammalogists, the Society of Animal Artists, and the Society of Illustrators.

Beginning in the 1960s, Schoenherr created numerous science fiction illustrations, in addition to artwork in other genres. Among the books he illustrated are The Wolfling and Rascal by Sterling North, the latter a Newbery Honor Book. Under John W. Campbell, Jr. and Ben Bova at Analog, he also illustrated the first Dragonriders of Pern stories by Anne McCaffrey, the 1967/1968 novellas "Weyr Search" and "Dragonrider" (each featured on one Analog cover as well) that were subsequently developed as the novel Dragonflight. He also worked for paperback and hardcover science fiction publishers like Ace Books and Doubleday.

Personal life Schoenherr was a resident of Delaware Township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey. He died on April 8, 2010, of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Easton, Pennsylvania.