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The Art Of John Berkley with text by Jane Frank
01/10/2004 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
pub: Paper Tiger. 128 page hardback. Price: £20.00 (UK), $29.95 (US), $46.95 (CAN). ISBN: 1-84340-122-3. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check out website: www.papertiger.co.uk and www.varley.net
John Berkley is probably an artist whose work you've seen gracing SF book covers, admired his spaceships and not really thought much about who did it. I'm sure I've got some of his work on my books sans credit as might you all.
What is most remarkable about Berkley's work is that he's mostly an impressionist rather than an exact painter.
That is, his art tends to make more sense at a distance than close up when the art becomes less distinct. 'Course, optically, when shrunk to the size of a bookcover the detail looks more than it actually is and many people probably think it's an exact design.
Berkley, himself, describes how he checks his own pictures as he paints them via a couple of especially arranged mirrors so he sees them at a distance. If nothing else, it shows you we all need to see art at the right distance rather than go close-up and count every brushstroke.
That's not to say Berkley does all his work in impressionist mode. There's a lot of examples in this book that shows otherwise and a number of paintings that he painted purely for his own enjoyment as well.
In many ways, Berkley appears to have cornered the market for spaceships in his SF art and no one has paid him to stretch beyond that with aliens or humans which I find somewhat a shame cos his talent certainly shows he is more than capable of such assignments. His art as shown here is certainly impressive and over his 70 years, Berkley has no doubt been an influence on other SF artists. You'd be sorry not to have this book in your collection.
GF Willmetts
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