Mr. Tinkelman and his favorite cover!
Two weeks ago I had the great pleasure of speaking with Mr. Murray Tinkelman, the famous and award winning illustrator. This came about by my wanting to do something different for once in the blog. Mr. Tinkelman has been one of my favourite cover artists since the middle 1970s when he illustrated the front and inside covers for the Lovecraft and Lovecraft related titles for Ballantine books under the editorship of Judy Lynn del Rey. Anyone who is familiar with these editions will immediately recognize and appreciate the beauty and uniqueness of these editions. Mr. Tinkelman went on to do many more wonderful covers for such authors as Kurt Vonnegut, John Brunner, Richard Matheson, Zane Grey, Joe Haldeman and E. R. Eddison.
Mr. Tinkelman grew up in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. Upon graduating from High School of Industrial Arts
he started working for the
famous Iger Studios doing “touch up work” for other artists along with his best
friend “Dick Giordano2. Mr. Tinkelman didn’t get along very well with Mr. Iger
and moved on to greener pastures. His first professional sale was to “Seventeen
Magazine”. This shows that even great artists like Mr. Tinkelman have to start
somewhere. Since these humble beginnings Mr. Tinkelman has gone on to become
one of the nations greatest Illustrators and respected artists. Here is a
direct quote from his Studio’s home page…
Tinkelman has been a guest curator for The Discovery Museum in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and the Society of Illustrators, Museum of American Illustration in New York City.
Tinkelman has been named the recipient of the 1999 Distinguished Educator in the Arts award from the Society of Illustrators in New York. He has received the 1995 Sports Artist of the Year from The United States Sports Academy, the 1970 Artist of the Year award from The Graphic Arts Guild in New York City, and the 2001 Syracuse University Faculty Service Citation.
He is Professor Emeritus from Syracuse University where he taught in the undergraduate program and was the senior advisor in the Independent Study MA Program in Illustration for over 25 years from 1979 - 2006.
I have to make a confession
now, up until two weeks ago I only knew Mr. Tinkelman as one of my favourite
cover artists and nothing more! I actually had the Chutzpah to write to the
man and ask him if he’d answer a few questions form the blog. I sent him a link
to a previous post of mine covering his cover work for the HPL titles. He
quickly responded to my email. He said that he didn’t like to type and he
wouldn’t burden his wife with his correspondence. But I was free to call him at
home. He then added his telephone number. I thought ok, this’ll be an
interesting, since I had only originally planned on sending him a few simple
questions. I then realized that I had better learn a little bit about the man
if I was actually going to be audacious enough to actually impose on his time,
kindness and generosity.
After
reading up on Mr. Tinkelman’s (real) career, I was terrified to think that I
had the nerve to impose upon such an important artist. At first I thought of begging off. But then after chewing over it, I then
thought that I’d just express my admiration, ask a few simple questions and leave
the man alone. So two weeks ago today I pulled my nerve together and called at
the agreed upon time.
What
I at first feared to be a humiliating experience turned into one of the most
joyful, informative and entertaining 54 minutes of my life. I quickly discovered that Mr. Tinkelman, to
my great relief and pleasure, is an extremely warm, friendly, unpretentious and
charming man!
Mr.
Tinkelman asked me about myself and why I was interested in his work, which I
explained. He told me that he never considered himself a “Cover Artist”. He
explained that cover art allowed him the freedom to move onto to his actual
artistic interests. He said that when he makes public appearances that he gets
recognized by three groups of fans/admirers. Those who are interested in his
art and illustration career, those who know him as a SF/Horror/Fantasy cover
artist and those who admire his cover work on westerns.
Mr.
Tinkelman loves 1950s autos, Baseball, the rodeo as inspiration for his western
art and Gene Autry. He explained to me that there are two kinds of people in
this world. They are “Gene Autry” people and “Roy Rogers” people. Because of my
father, I’m a Roy Rogers person myself. Mr. Tinkelman was kind enough not to
hold that against me though!
Mr. Steve "Doc Savage" Holland
Mr. Steve "Doc Savage" Holland
I
asked him about the HPL covers he did and he told me that he knew Lovecraft
from his youth by reading his father’s copies of “Weird Tales Magazine”. He
went on to tell me that he had been offered by “Ballantine Books” to illustrate
the covers to Ballantine’s reissue of the Tarzan novels. Mr. Tinkelman didn’t
feel that his style would be appropriate for the Tarzan novels and declined.
This was a huge break for the famous comic’s artist “Neal Adams” since he ended
up getting the assignment. I have to say, that even though I agree with Mr.
Tinkelman, that his style might not fit the Tarzan novels, I would still have
loved to have seen what he would have done. He then went on to tell me that
just a day or so later he was approached by re-approached by Ian Summers to do
the Lovecraft illustrations for Ballantine.
Mr.
Tinkelman also told me of his time stationed in Germany with the army where he
worked in Wurzburg as an illustrator painting
welcome signs for officer’s wives and hand drawing cigar bands when officer’s
children were born. I asked him how this was (this was during the Korean War)
and he said that it was better than getting shot at. I can agree with 100%!
We
then went on to discuss illustration in general and the decline of “Book Design”.
Mr.
Tinkelman believes that the decline in the quality of book design can be mostly
blamed on inexperienced art directors at the publishing houses. He told me that
these days the position of “Art Director” is often considered to be an
unimportant opening position that is filled by young inexperienced people and
that it isn’t taken nearly as seriously as before. He also thinks that even
though “narrative illustration” is much less in demand there is still plenty of
wonderful work being done in “decorative illustration”. Mr. Tinkelman stated
that, his good friend, the late Maurice Sendak also shared the opinion that
quality book design had suffered greatly these last few decades.
Mr. Tinkelman's Original Cover The "Red sells" cover
Mr. Tinkelman told me two interesting stories regarding how Art Editors will meddle with and destroy fine book art. Mr. Tinkelman did the famous cover for Kurt Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle”. This is lovely piece of art that draws your eye to the book that is done predominantly in shades of yellow. When “Dell Books” decided to reissue the novel, the art director decided that “red sells” and heavily cropped the art and placed a heavy red border around it. The second story involves Mr. Tinkelman’s continuing interest in book design and art. He told me that he still browses the SF section and the books stores. He came across a new edition of “John Brunner’s “Stand on Zanzibar”. “Random House” still owned the reprint rights to his cover art which allowed them to continue using it over the years. It seems that some “genius” in their art department decided to “improve” upon Mr. Tinkelman’s original art and completely butchered it into a horrible collage. Mr. Tinkelman was understandably angry enough that he wrote a letter to the art department at Random House asking them what they thought they were doing. And as a perfect example of how things are run these days, instead of explaining their decision, they just sent him a form letter referring any future inquiries to their legal department. I can’t decide for myself what is worse in this situation, the ignorance, the hubris or the arrogance.
The Original cover The Butchered late 80s cover
As
I was doing my research/home work on Mr. Tinkelman’s art and career I came
across his series of covers he did for some of the “Zane Grey” westerns. These
were new to me and I was overjoyed to see that he was using “Steve Holland” as
his model. Even if the name “Steve Holland” doesn’t mean anything to most
people, millions of readers still know the man’s face, physique and torn shirt.
Steve Holland is the man who was immortalized as the personification of “Doc
Savage” on the famous “James Bama” paperback covers from the 1960s!!! It turns
out the Mr. Tinkelman and Mr. Bama are good friends and that Mr. Tinkelman got
to “borrow” Steve for the Zane Grey covers. Mr. Bama went on to become an
admired and respected western and landscape painter. One funny note to this interesting
piece of information is that when I informed Mr. Tinkelman that the original
“torn shirt” worn by Mr. Holland had been auctioned off for a very high price,
Mr. Tinkelman told me that he still owned the denim jacket worn by Mr. Holland
in all those Zane Grey covers.
At
one point during our conversation I told Mr. Tinkelman that the “Tinkelman
Lovecrafts” bring much higher prices with collectors than the ”Michael Whelan
Lovecrafts”. He just laughed and said “don’t let Michael know that!”
I’m
going to wrap this up. I was so nervous and the beginning of our conversation
and then so over joyed and enthralled that I forgot to take any notes while we
were talking. As soon as we hung up I started jotting down notes like a mad
man. So I’m sure I’ve left a few things out. Regardless, it was a wonderful
hour spent with one of my idols who turned out to be so much more kind,
generous and charming as I could ever have hoped for.
I
am very much in Mr. Tinkelman’s debt and extremely thankful that he shared his
precious time with me.
Postscript….
I’m
going to add something here that I recently realized and I’m kicking myself for
not bringing it up with Mr. Tinkelman.
Lastly,
take a look at the books that Mr. Tinkelman worked on. Every single one of
these books is still in print and considered classics in their fields. Mr.
Tinkelman was chosen to represent the finest that these genres had to offer.
This shows me how highly Mr.Tinkelman was held in the esteem of the publishing
houses. They wanted the very best to represent the very best.
Mr.
Tinkelman told me that he was once approached by Joe Haldeman, who told him
that Mr. Tinkelman’s cover for “The Forever War” was his favourite cover from
all the ones that ever appeared on his books.
Looking
at the body of his work, and even though Mr. Tinkelman stated he didn’t
consider himself a cover artist. I myself consider him a Grand Master of the
field and the faces which he placed on these books greatly increased the
reading experience of each one.
On
a last note, I’ve just learned that Murray has been awarded an
Honorary Doctorate by the Kendall School of Art and Design in Grand Rapids Michigan and the he is also being
inducted to the Illustrators Hall of Fame!!
Congratulations
Murray!!
So cool! I realize I have more Tinkelman covers than I thought: a Brunner, Vonnegut, that FOREVER WAR, and I AM LEGEND, plus various HPL's. Thanks for interviewing him, great stuff.
AntwortenLöschenThanks Will!
AntwortenLöschenIt pleases me that you liked it.
It's far from being a done deal yet, but this interview might have actualy landed me a professional gig!
take care and enjoy the weekend.
Doug
Interesting and good to put a face on the cover art for that particular edition of The Worm Ouroborous
AntwortenLöschen