RIP Basil Gogos

It is with a heavy heart that we mark the passing of a true art legend, Basil Gogos. Basil passed away Thursday at the age of 78. As many of you know, he was one of the 1st Jury panel member for IBA #1 and we had a Limited Edition Hard cover made of his Frankenstein painting which sold out immediately.

 

When I contacted Basil about becoming a jury member, he had been recovering from a stroke and had not done any appearances, but he was so enthused about what we were trying to accomplish, he agreed to become a jury member and fly out to Los Angels and attend the Long Beach Comic con. Obviously, he was a big hit at the convention and it was amazing to see the number of people he influenced. I will forever be grateful that I had the opportunity to meet Basil, hear his amazing stories, and share his passion for the fantasy art world...

 

Via Wikipedia, “Basil Gogos’ first work for Famous Monsters of Filmland was Issue #9 in 1960, featuring an impressionistic portrait of Vincent Price from House of Usher painted in shades of red, yellow and green. Over the next two decades, he created almost 50 covers for Famous Monsters, many of which have become iconic images of that period. Gogos also provided cover art for several other Warren magazines including Creepy and Eerie.”

“Gogos’ Famous Monsters cover art featured most of the classic horror characters such as The Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, King Kong, Godzilla and The Creature from the Black Lagoon and popular horror actors like Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Vincent Price, Lon Chaney, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Gogos often captured his subjects in an array of vivid colors using a technique in which the artist imagined the character bathed in colors from multiple light sources. He enjoyed painting monsters more than most of his more conventional assignments because of the freedom he was given and because of the challenge of painting such unusual characters which he endeavored to portray as both frightening and sympathetic.”