Charles Vess
Charles Vess (born June 10, 1951)[1] is an American fantasy artist and comics artist who has specialized in the illustration of myths and fairy tales. His influences include British "Golden Age" book illustrator Arthur Rackham, Czech Art Nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha, and comic-strip artist Hal Foster, among others. Vess has won several awards for his illustrations. Vess' studio, Green Man Press, is located in Abingdon, VA.
Charles Vess
June 10, 1951
American
Artist
- Hugo Awards: 2019 Best Professional Artist, Best Art Book
- Locus Awards: 2019, 2023 Best Artist, Best Art Book
- Inkpot Award: 1990
- Eisner Award: 1991, 1997, 2002
- World Fantasy Award: 1991, 1999
- Comic Creators' Guild 1993
- Silver Award (Comics Industry) 1995
He has received numerous awards and honors for his work including the 2019, and 2023 Locus Award for Best Artist, and the 2019 Hugo Awards for Best Professional Artist and Best Art Book for The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition.[2]
In 1991, his work with Neil Gaiman on the Sandman comic short story "A Midsummer Night's Dream" became the first comic to win the World Fantasy Award.[3]
Biography[edit]
Early life and career[edit]
Charles Vess began drawing comic art as a child. He graduated with a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in 1974. While at VCU, Vess' comics appeared in the Fan Free Funnies, a comic tabloid published by the student newspaper.[4] His first professional position was as a commercial animator for Candy Apple Productions in Richmond, Virginia, which he held for approximately two years.
In 1976 he moved to New York City and became a freelance illustrator. He contributed illustrations to publications including Heavy Metal, Klutz Press (now an imprint of Scholastic Press), and National Lampoon. One notable publication from this early period was The Horns of Elfland (ISBN 0-915822-25-3) published by Archival Press in 1979, which Vess wrote and illustrated.[5]
From 1980 to 1982 Vess worked as an art instructor at the Parsons School of Design in New York City. During that period, his work appeared in one of the first major museum exhibitions of science fiction and fantasy art, held at the New Britain Museum of American Art in 1980.
Starting in 1989 with "The Art of Fantasy and Science Fiction" at the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington, Delaware, a series of gallery exhibitions have featured Vess's artwork. The gallery show "Storyteller" appeared in 1992 at Frameworks Gallery in Bristol, Virginia. The following year he showed work under the title "The Mythic Garden" at the Open Air Birch Garden in Devon, England, and "The Magic" at Repartee Gallery in Park City, Utah.
In 1994, after he moved to southwestern Virginia, a local museum asked Vess to organize a show which became The DreamWeavers: a travelling exhibition of 15 fantasy artists from a variety of fields including children's book illustrators Jerry Pinkney, Dennis Nolan, Gennady Spirin, Ruth Sanderson and David Wisnieski; comic book illustrators Michael Kaluta, and Vess himself; science fiction/fantasy book jacket artists Dawn Wilson and James Gurney; commercial book illustrators Scott Gustafson, Brian Froud, Alan Lee and Alicia Austin, and fine artist Terri Windling. The show ran from fall 1994 through summer 1995.
Since that time Vess's work has appeared in gallery showings and museum exhibitions including: