Richard M. Powers

Richard M. Powers (February 24, 1921 – March 9, 1996) was an American science fiction and fantasy fiction illustrator. He was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2008

Life and work Born in Chicago into a Catholic family, Richard Michael Gorman Powers Eventually, he became one of the most influential science fiction and fantasy fiction artists of all time.

He began by working in a conventional pulp-derived style, but quickly evolved a personal Surrealist idiom influenced by the cubists and surrealists, especially Picasso and Yves Tanguy. He also painted in a more purely abstract style and later worked in collage.

From the 1940s through the 1960s, he did many covers for Doubleday. During the 1950s and 1960s, he served as an unofficial art director for Ballantine Books.

He died in 1996 at age 75.

Cultural influence In 2010, Andy Partridge, former frontman of the British new wave band XTC, released a limited edition CD of music inspired by Powers' art titled POWERS.

Selected works In 1952, Powers provided a Galaxy Science Fiction cover highlighting essays by de Camp and by Robert A. Heinlein

Collections Spacetimewarp: Paintings (1983) (Doubleday Science Fiction Book Club)

Illustrated books Powers provided interior illustrations for a number of Easton Press special editions of classic science fiction novels, including a 1986 editions of The Gods Themselves and To Your Scattered Bodies Go.

American Tall Tales, Adrien Stoutenburg, interior illustrations (Puffin, 1976) The Number of the Beast (1980), interior artwork and cover illustrations, first edition

Album covers Symphonie Fantastique Hector Berlioz, Charles Munch, conductor, Boston Symphony Orchestra. RCA Victor, 1955 Is It...Man or Astroman? Man or Astro-Man, Estrus Records, 1995

Book covers The Internet Speculative Fiction Database catalogs hundreds of book covers illustrated by Powers beginning 1950 (two known).