Customer Reviews

Paperback Covers of Robert McGinnis

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Well, right off the bat let me just say that if you are a Robert McGinnis fan, you must have this book. The production standards are terrific and the reproductions of paintings, from the originals, are as crisp and eye-popping as you always hope for in an art book. The book is also a valuable companion volume to "Tapestry" released. last year and covers completey new ground in terms of illustrations reproduced. All this said, I do have a quibble with the thought that went into the layout. Fine coated art paper is used throughout and what did the authors do? They filled up huge portions of this gorgeous paper with a complete checklist of McGinnis paperback covers, rather than the illustrations us fans were looking for. The checklist is a valuable tool for those who wish to compile a complete library of McGinnis paperbacks, (say, 5% of the people who love the work of McGinnis), but it could easily have fit at the back of the book on cheaper stock, which would have left room for dozens (if not hundreds) of color McGinnis covers. Oh well! Still good, but it was "this close" to being great!

Robert McGinnis is one of America's most gifted illustrators and the breadth of his talent was well-documented in his art book, TAPESTRY. Pin-ups, Westerns, movie posters--the guy could paint it all. THE PAPERBACK COVERS OF ROBERT MCGINNIS, though featuring several paintings as well as pencil roughs and a couple of photo references, is not an art book, but rather is a rather pricey checklist geared toward paperback collectors. The majority of the color works are small reproductions of the actual covers as they originally appeared--and the focus is firmly on McGinnis' detective covers with the other genre's he's worked in getting barely a nod. Even so, I would have preferred to see large reproductions of the artist's trademark femme fatales unmarred by titles instead of the plethora of tiny second-generation reproductions found in this volume: the format and content is geared SO much toward the hardcore collector mentality that the editors/authors seemed to have lost track of the ART and the ARTIST they supposedly revere. A disappointment.

If you would like to check more McGinnis art images that will a companion to Art Scott's outstanding book check out the Robert McGinnis documentary DVD titled ROBERT McGINNIS PAINTING THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER it contains interviews with McGinnis and Art Scott as well. McGinnis demostrates his entire painting process.

Robert McGinnis was a genius at figure painting, and as an illustrator - his style is beautiful crafted and appealing. However he mostly painted nudes for 50's-70's novel covers so the content of this book is mostly small images of soft porn. I was hoping for more figure painting, but the image on the cover is one of the few in the book with clothes on.

If I'd known that, I wouldn't have wasted my money.

His other book 'tapestry' covers a broader range of his subject matter and you also get westerns, land/seascapes as well as helpful, larger scale images where you can see brushstrokes and details as well as working methods.

A talented illustrator, but I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.