Richard Powers Art Exhibition

A fantastic exhibition celebrating the art of Richard Powers was held during the 2015 World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs, NY on November 5-8.  The exhibition displayed around 90 original pieces in Powers SF/F style -- the largest public display ever.  

Rick Lieder organized the event, which included a panel discussion led by Vincent di Fate and David Hartwell.  It was a rare and wonderful opportunity to see the works of Richard Powers in person.

Photos from the event can be seen here...
Richard Powers 2015 WFC Exhibition

Deathstar Immortal

Here is another example I came across where Powers went back to a previous painting and did a "paint over", changing the contrast and adding elements (abstract figures and flying gizmos), etc.

The original painting was done for the novel "Deathstar Voyage" by Ian Wallace (Book Club 1969).  Powers later altered this painting to create the cover for "This Immortal" by Roger Zelazny (Ace 1988).

Personally, I love the redo!  I have noticed a trend to his "paint-overs" whereby he routinely reduces the contrast of graphic elements, adding depth cues, and pushing the piece away from graphic illustration towards a more "fine art" approach.

Another One Bites the Dust...

I found another example of a Powers
cover that no longer exists...

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Powers was notorious for cutting up older paintings to create new ones.  Having looked at many examples, I begin to notice a pattern -- if a cover worked well on its own as a "painting" he would apparently keep it intact and try to sell it.  But if an illustration was too obviously composed as a cover illustration (i.e. all the interest is in the bottom third, obvious graphic elements to support text, etc.), it became fodder for future collage pieces.

Thus, poor "Beyond Infinity" got the axe (literally).

Rocket Powers!

It is hard to illustrate SF book covers without creating more than a few spaceships over the years, and Powers certainly did. Although his early illustrations were more traditional "pointy rockets", they soon transmogrified into a plethora of abstract shapes and uncanny flying forms. But even his early pointy rockets (with requisite tail fins) were distinctly his own -- strangely asymmetric and often minimally graphic. Later, his space vehicle designs became limbless abstract bodies ("corpus" ships), biomorphic starships, or simply modern surrealist sculptures with rocket engines attached!

 I had fun stitching together an assortment of Powers ships for comparison, although this is by no means all of the MANY strange spacecraft he created...

From Richard Powers Art Blog

Recurring Dreams

Like many artists, Powers had favorite subjects he would return to time and again.  But whereas some artists may have favorite locations or models, Powers had favorite shapes.  He obviously enjoyed exploring certain shapes and visual ideas over and over.  It is not a case of running short of ideas (of which he had plenty).  Instead Powers created his own visual "language", and certain words bore repeating (albeit with different accents).

Powers played with many such motifs.  Here are just a few examples...

Meta-Heads
There is a tool in 3D modeling called "metaballs" that reminds me of a certain type of head motif that Powers sometimes used.  The effect achieves a different goal in each of these examples.  The meta-head of Aluminum Man gives the figure an intriguing appearance of "liquid metal" (long before Terminator 2).  The meta-head on the more realistic body in Time And Stars lends a horrifying loss of identity.  My favorite use of the meta-head is from On the Beach (bottom right) where the woman's head takes the appearance of a mushroom cloud -- brilliant!

From Richard Powers Art Blog

Minimal Man

What do you get when a meta-head finally pulls off the host body?  You get what I call the "minimal man".  This abstracted figure is disjointed and about as minimal as you can get.  Sometimes the head is connected, sometimes it just floats.  Sometimes there are 3 or 4 legs.  Why not?

From Richard Powers Art Blog

The Uprights

Another favorite shape idea is what I call the "uprights" because of their resemblance to football goal posts... complete with a "football" element (for three points)!

From Richard Powers Art Blog

Knives as Architecture

This is pretty self-explanatory, and certainly lends a bit of tension and danger to these future skylines.

From Richard Powers Art Blog

The Manta Shape

This interesting shape reminds me of a manta ray.  I find it fascinating that Powers decided to explore this shape again 16 years later (the amount of time between these two paintings).

From Richard Powers Art Blog

Fold, Spindle, and Mutilate...

Powers was notorious for re-purposing his art.  He had no attachment to much of his commercial art and would regularly pull older art and slice it up for "raw materials" to be used in other images, much to the horror of  his reps (like Jane Frank).  Powers would merrily destroy the old to create the new, despite pleadings to cease and desist!

There have been many times I have marveled at a particular cover he did, only to discover he had later pillaged it to create another cover... it was gone forever.  Although it is easy to mourn the many classic covers that Powers destroyed in his creative process, it is a fascinating glimpse at the man and his art (and it is a fun game to find and associate his cannibalized works).

Get Out of My Sky  
Here Powers cut elements from the back of the wrap-around cover of Get Out of My Sky to include in Tiger by The Tail.  Does the front cover portion still exist?  Possibly, as we will see in the next example.

From Richard Powers Art Blog The Undying Fire Powers was evidently bothered by the constraints of compositions inherent in wrap-around covers (or covers in general that must allow room for text).  He felt some of his commercial works had merit but needed cropping, so he might keep the front cover portion (for example) and cut off the back cover.  In the case of The Undying Fire, Powers kept the front cover portion (which exist today), but cannibalized the rear cover portion.

From Richard Powers Art Blog Lambda 1 Unfortunately THREE classic covers gave there lives for Lambda 1. Sad but true : (

From Richard Powers Art Blog

Maze of Death

Here Powers actually jumps genres, taking one his mystery covers and turning it into a SF cover.  This is one instance where I actually don't mind.  However, I have a bad feeling a few other works were mutilated for the other elements we see in Maze of Death.

From Richard Powers Art Blog Search the Sky

From Richard Powers Art Blog Star Shine Too bad, I liked Star Shine...

From Richard Powers Art Blog SF Omnibus Here SF Omnibus got scattered over several pieces.  I know I have seen the other abstract figurative element on top appear on another cover as well.

From Richard Powers Art Blog

Powers... in 3D!

Powers was constantly experimenting with different media and techniques.  Towards the end of his life he was still trying new things and new forms of expression.  In the early 90's, Powers created a series sculpted mixed media pieces.  Many of these were done as shadow boxes and contained painted elements as well as the sculpts.  I believe the sculpted elements were done with wire and terracotta.  I acquired this particular piece (40x26x5.5) from the Powers estate through Jane Frank, and I was told it was the first of Powers' sculpted piece sold.  They are fragile and the estate was concerned.  I'm happy to report it survived the trip!  Since then, more of Powers sculpted pieces have been offered.

You can see them through the Baldwin Hill Gallery http://www.baldwinhillframing.com/more-about-richard-powers/

From Richard Powers Art Blog