

As he got older, photography became a larger part of his life he owned several cameras and used his own darkroom to develop his work. (Many Tolkien fans will recognize the name Ralph Bakshi, as he directed the animated version of The Lord of the Rings in 1978.)įrazetta had a few museums, the first one originating in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, but according to the Frank Frazetta Museum website, it is currently closed.
#Frazetta barsoom ink drawings movie
In 1983, he released a movie called Fire and Ice with Ralph Bakshi, and a lot of the story and characters were created by Frazetta himself. The artwork is different from how we are normally used to seeing Tolkien’s world, and I admit that the armor he created for Éowyn probably isn’t the most logical choice for battle, but I personally love Frazetta’s take on it. Unfortunately, while I don’t have an official set from the signed 1000, I do have prints of the portfolio, and they’re one of my favorite parts of my Tolkien collection.

Accustomed to his versions of fantasy characters becoming definitive, he was somewhat mystified by the controversy surrounding the folio.” Frazetta responded with, “Wow, I thought the Burroughs fans were particular, but the Tolkien fans were really picky.” (Sadly there is not much information surrounding Frazetta’s interest in Tolkien.) One thousand sets of the portfolio were printed, numbered, and signed by the artist. In the book, Testament: The Life and Art of Frank Frazetta, it’s stated that “it ignited a firestorm of criticism from the legion of Rings fans who took issue with Frank’s liberal interpretation of the story. When the portfolio was released, many Tolkien fans didn’t have the best reactions towards it. It includes seven ink illustrations, and in addition, Frazetta created an oil painting of Gollum for his own enjoyment. In 1975, the Middle Earth Portfolio Publishing Company in Denver, Colorado commissioned Frazetta to create a portfolio based on J. In addition, Frazetta created artwork for magazines like Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella, as well as movie posters, a couple examples of these being What’s New Pussycat? and Clint Eastwood’s The Gauntlet.

One of my favorite covers is from a novel called The Reassembled Man (NSFW) by Herbert D. My father has many copies of these books sitting on his bookshelves, and admits the main reason he bought them was solely for the cover art. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan and Barsoom series. He created covers for paperback books such as Robert E. He met lifelong friend Roy Krenkel in the late 40s and admits Krenkel was one of his inspirations and the reason he became interested in painting covers for books and magazines. He got a break three years later from Graham Ingels, an illustrator, who gave him a feature called Judy of the Jungle, which led Frazetta to do others such as Thund’a and Dan Brand and Tipi.įor a long time, he wanted to be able to do the Tarzan comic strip, but didn’t take it when he was finally offered the idea of becoming a comic strip artist had lost its appeal at that point. This work was called Snowman, and later that year he completed a feature called Captain Kidd Jr. It wasn’t until he was 16 when he had his work published for the first time. While Frazetta still continued to draw and paint a little during his teen years, he became interested in other things, such as athletics, and was offered a contract to play for the New York Giants’ farm team, which he declined. After his professor, Michele Falanga, died, many of the students got together and paid for the school’s rent, and the school remained open for another year before it eventually closed. Through this, she showed him that there was money to be made in art and encouraged him and always showed an interest in his work.Īt eight years old, his parents enrolled him in the Brooklyn Academy of Fine Arts (which only had about 30 students, with ages ranging from eight to eighty). He was born in 1928 in Brooklyn, New York, and when he was younger than three years old, he sold his grandmother a crayon drawing for a penny (which was enough for him to buy a handful of candy!).
#Frazetta barsoom ink drawings series
While he didn’t do much work surrounding Tolkien, he did produce a series of illustrations for The Lord of the Rings (which are some of my all-time favorite pieces of artwork).

His work has graced the covers of many books and magazines, as well as movie posters. Frank Frazetta was an American artist known primarily for his fantasy-based artwork.
