My earliest exposure to the work of H. P. Lovecraft and his friends was through the Beagle Boxer paperbacks that were published in the early 70's. The artwork on these early paperback editions strikes me even now as some of the best evocations of the "cosmic weirdness" quality of Lovecraft's writing. Unfortunately, I don't know the artist's name for sure. A couple of people have suggested to me that the artist is probably Murray Tinkleman. Another possibility is Gervasio Gallardo, who did other Lovecraft covers for Ballantine in the 70's, but his work looks stylistically a bit different to me.
More than one artist may have contributed to the book covers shown below. A correspondent, Ric Bergquist, says "Afraid that I don't know the name of the artist either but I noticed that he always signed his work with a big red floral V. He is definitely responsible for the 4 Cthulhu book covers as well as Beagle's issue of The Horror in the Museum. I do not believe he was behind the artwork on all the books however. He did do 2 Lovecraft reussues for Lancer in the 70s also. These were newer editions of The Dunwich Horror and The Colour Out of Space. I do not recall if these listed the artist or not."
Another correspondent, Phil Clarke, found artist credits for some of the same art on Panther Books editions published in the U.K. The cover of The Lurking Fear is credited to Michael McInnerney; the cover of The Lurker at the Threshold is credited to Gino D’Achille.
(If you have any further information about the artist or artists, send it to me via our Contact Us form.)
For those who remember these books fondly as I do, or those who are new to them, I'm including reproductions below. Please excuse the scuffed condition of the covers . . . consider it atmosphere. Eldritch, worm-eaten tomes from time immemorial, you know.
Click on any of the following for a larger version:
I recently found some of the Lancer editions that Ric Berquist mentioned. These are added below. They appear to be by the artist who did the Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, Mask of Cthulhu, and Trail of Cthulhu covers. The Colour Out of Space cover and Horror in the Museum cover include the floral V signature that also appears on the Mask of Cthulhu cover. (Thanks to terran_trader_rarefinds for supplying the cover of The Horror in the Museum.) Click any of the following for a larger version:
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