Virgil In Blue

To wrap up this week's look back at the artwork of Virgil Finlay, let's take a look at some of his more 'adult oriented' imagery in our 'back room' - The Other Voice Of ODD!

Step on back to peruse the full post.

artwork by Virgil Finlay

Falling Further Into Finlay

I've spoken previously of my fondness for the artwork of Virgil Finlay, but we've gone much too long without returning to the topic. Happily, i got a little nudge in that direction while trying to get my brain back to the blog, so let's take a gander at some more of his work, starting with the one that inspired the topic title...

Note the unusual signature on this one...

...and, yes - it is part of a series, as one might suspect.

Something i've rarely seen is Finlay using duo-tone/duo-shade boards in his work. I don't think these exist any more, though i could be wrong. What they were is art boards with two contrasting shading patterns embedded in the page. The tones could be brought out using one of two developing solutions (or both, overlapping) painted on with a brush. We're so used to seeing his elaborate texturing work, it's a mild shock to see the use of duo-shade, as in this piece...

...not that he doesn't make it work well. It was just surprising to see, at least it was for me. Afterward, i began to notice some other more subtle uses with the duoshade providing background textures while primary figures received his usual detailed inks.

I think this odd little piece is enhanced by the title - The Angry Street...

This last piece is from late in Finlay's life. He died back in 1971, and this is from 1968. Sometimes when i view this one, i think of a valley of souls in the afterlife with Virgil leading a friendlier journey than his namesake...

Next time:
You knew that Virgil Finlay drew comics, right?

all art by Virgil Finlay (1937-1968)

Pulp Paintings

As promised earlier, we've got a small collection of Margaret Brundage's cover paintings for Weird Tales, sans the cover text.

 This painting was for the cover of Golden Fleece magazine -

For your reference, here's the magazine cover version -

The most frustrating part about encountering artists whose careers were crushed like this is the thought that most artists get better over time, creating their greatest works later in life. Those works were essentially stolen from us. Margaret deserved better, and the world did, too.

Bonus Brundage: There's a small collection of non-cover paintings posted in our adult content back room, The Other Voice Of ODD!
Follow this link to see the four paintings, including two 'brighter' paintings from later in her life.

I wonder how many paintings are out there from Margaret Brundage?

This gets complicated by the possibility that she was also selling her work under aliases after the scandal troubles when the public realized Brundage was a woman. Note this painting from 'Marni Bron'(dage?) -

Compare the M and the rs and ns in Marni's signature to that of Margaret Brundage:

 They certainly seem to be the same to my aging eyes.
 Perhaps someday a comprehensive collection of her lost artwork will be assembled. Until then, i'll keep hunting for those lost treasures...

all art by Margaret Brundage

Non-Verbal In The Groovy Age

As mentioned recently, we'll be lingering for a bit in what i term the "Groovy Age" (about a half dozen years on either side of 1968). I'm kind of wiped from a number of things, including working on transforming the blog so we can drop the adult warning. Progress is good, by the way - all of last year's posts are cleared and currently started on January posts. That's left me feeling a bit non-verbal, so let's just go with that.

Purely visual diversions from some of those groovy age publications -

 

i said non-verbal. if you wants to know, asks