Visions Of The Future edited by Janet Sacks (book review).
Looking for early artbooks to bring to your attention, I came across ‘Visions Of The Future’. It wasn’t until I read editor Janet Sacks introduction that I realised the connection to ‘Science Fiction Monthly’, a mid-1970s monthly magazine I collected in its 2 year existence and still stashed away in a drawer to protect from sunlight damaging the paper.
This book distils 29 of its artists, with history/interviews for some of them and examples of their art, much of it used on the covers of New English Library and Panther Books covers which must have gotten around copyright clearances and probably why the USS Discovery from Science Fiction Monthly # 1’s cover wasn’t here. Being at nearly the same size as the magazine was quite a move-up at the time.
For those who need to know for their favourite artists and alphabetically in the book: Brent Armstrong, Jim Burns, Gary Chalk, Gareth Colman, Lucinda Cowell, Gordon C. Davies, Roger Dean, Emlyn Duffy, Ray Felbush, Chris Foss, C. Foster, Bob Fowke, Bob Haberfield, David Hardy, G.W. Harrison, Colin Hay, David Higgins, P. Jepson, Josh Kirby, Bob Layzell, Mike Little, Brigid Marin, Ian Miller, Kristine Nason, Michael Payne, David Pelham, Bruce Pennington, Tim White and Chris Yates. Not all artists have biographies but all have several pages of their art. Oh, this is also Tim White’s first outing in an art anthology.
Reading the book, I have to confess that some of the art colours looked muddied than others and was thinking towards book age or paper quality and then with Chris Foss’ paintings showing so much better that it was the colour choices of the artists. There is no reference to the scale the original artists painted at compared to the size of this book or the allowances for printing colours from the time period so bear that in mind if you can locate a copy. If anything, I was surprised how many copies are still available to buy second-hand.
I have to confess that the original magazine looks a lot better but it does act as a quick introduction to what are essentially British and the odd Australian artist from that time period and a realisation so many are pensionable age now.
In the introduction, AE Van Vogt comments that a lot of SF cover art has gone experimental and although there is a little that is truly abstract here, most are standard paintings.
The price for such an old book isn’t too bad when you compare to the individual prices for each issue of ‘Science Fiction Monthly’, assuming you can find and afford them. Did I say it was nearly A2 size?
GF Willmetts
March 2022
(pub: New English Library, 1976. 128 page A2 illustrated softcover. Price: around £35 (UK) these days. ISBN: 450-03187-5)
