From images in black and white to inventive gadgets, the golden age of SF film, and pictures from the flying saucer era, these paintings capture the range of Hugo Award-winner Vincent Di Fate’s achievements. More than 100 color artworks complement a vigorous, vivacious text by the artist himself. Space chases, futuristic supermen, machines born of dreams or nightmares, and more: each illustration is a voyage of the imagination.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In a career spanning some four decades, Vincent Di Fate has painted countless color-drenched scenes of space monsters, sea creatures, alien landscapes and futuristic technologies. In The Science Fiction Art of Vincent Di Fate, he reproduces over a hundred of his paintings in a slick coffee-table volume for any fan of the fantastical, dividing them into categories (Gadget Man, Future Real, Fantasy and Horror and Fantasy Imagined) and accompanying them with highly readable essays on UFOs, the Golden Age of SF movies and more.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Di Fate's Infinite Worlds (1997) may be the best historical-biographical showcase of sf art ever, but Di Fate on his work and the interests that influenced it is better reading. Besides displaying some 100 of his pen-and-ink scratchboard drawings and marvelously colorful acrylics, this album includes three well-written, congenial, and absorbing essays. The first is autobiographical and centered on his career rather than his private life, though the latter impinged uncomfortably on the former at the very beginning, when his wife, diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma, was given mere months to live; fortunately, he thrived, and she survived. The second is a celebration of sci-fi--that is, science fiction movies, especially those of the '50s and '60s--which he loved then, still loves, implies we might at least enjoy, even now, and distinguishes from sf, the literary genre, which he says is invariably more intelligent than sci-fi. The final essay is about his longtime, career-influencing interest in UFOs, especially the wave of sensational late 1940s sightings. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Di Fate is a modern master,
By popular culture lover (Travelers Rest, SC United States) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Science Fiction Art of Vincent Di Fate (Hardcover)
Not only is Vincent Di Fate an excellent illustrator, he's also a great historian of science fiction illustration, from the time of Verne through today. This book shows off Di Fate's stunning art to perfection. He gives honest and relevant commentary about the individual works, revealing his thought processes at the time. Another treat is some superlative black and white illustrations that he's done for sci fi magazines over the years. This is a stellar book.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Consistent work!!!,
By Carlos Severino (Lisbon, Portugal) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Science Fiction Art of Vincent Di Fate (Hardcover)
SPECIFICS: Page Count: 112 Number of images: 71 Small images: 11 Half page images: 17 Full page images: 38 2-page spreads: 5 BW images: 2 TEXT: Introduction: 2 pages Index of works: 1 page Title, year, medium used, real size and short comment for each piece The book has 6 chapters, which try to cover the artist's career (8 pages) and the science fiction genre (25 pages). ART: 6 images: 5 stars 35 images: 4 stars 25 images: 3 stars 5 images: 2 stars 0 images: 1 star Overall: 3,5 Stars Note: images smaller than a ¼ page were left out of the rating
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Gem of a Book,
By
This review is from: The Science Fiction Art of Vincent Di Fate (Hardcover)
A master illustrator, on a par with legends such as Pyle, Rockwell or Wyeth, Vincent Di Fate understands the recipe for a superb illustration. From his early illustrations in Analog magazine during the 1970s and '80s to covers of Del Rey and Tor novels, later finding a broader audience while illustrating for such diverse groups as Scholastic books, the National Geographic Society and NASA, Di Fate has captivated the imaginations of countless readers with unique visions of space and the future expressed in his own signature style. This compilation offers a rare insight into their creation, from the Master himself.
Far more than a mere portfolio of his most well-known cover paintings, this book also includes a wide sampling of Di Fate's lesser-known works, as well as his work in other media including pen & ink, several preliminary sketches and even a balsa wood model he scratch-built as a reference for one of his paintings! The book does a decent job chronicling his work, through a career which spans over forty years, as of this writing. Throughout the text, his essays and commentary are thoroughly readable, and include much anecdotal material which really sheds light on the creative and developmental processes of the professional science fiction illustrator. The Science Fiction Art of Vincent Di Fate is a must-read for any science fiction aficionado or aspiring graphic artist or illustrator.
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