CINXE.COM

<!doctype html>     <html class="no-js" lang="en"> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>SFE: Powers, Richard M</title> <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge,chrome=1"> <meta name="description" content="Welcome to the fourth edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction." /> <meta name="keywords" content="" /> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width,initial-scale=1">  <script> window.ga=window.ga||function(){(ga.q=ga.q||[]).push(arguments)};ga.l=+new Date; ga("create", "UA-24275979-1", "auto"); ga("send", "pageview"); </script> <script async src="https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js"></script>  <link rel="icon" href="favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon"> <link rel="shortcut icon" href="favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon"> <link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="apple-touch-icon.png"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="/static/css/style.css?v=1"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="/static/css/media-queries.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/cookie.css"> <script src="/static/js/libs/modernizr-2.0.6.min.js"></script> <style media="screen" type="text/css"> ::-moz-selection { background: navy !important; } html, body { margin:0; padding:0; height:100%; } #container { min-height:100%; position:relative; } #header { background:#ff0; padding:10px; } #body { padding-bottom:15px; /* Height of the footer */ } #footer { position:absolute; bottom:0; width:100%; height:15px; /* Height of the footer */ background:#6cf; } </style>  </head> <body style="overflow-x: hidden;"> <div id="container"> <div id="body"> <div id="minorNavWrapper"> <nav id="minornav" class="clearfix"> <ul class="clearfix" style="font-weight: bold;"> <li><a href="/">Home</a></li> <li><a href="/about-us">About us</a></li> <li><a href="/random.php">Random</a></li> <li><a href="/contact.php">Contact</a></li> <li><a href="/donate.php">Donate</a></li> </ul> </nav> </div> <div id="mainNavWrapper"> <nav id="mainnav"> <ul class="clearfix"> <li class="home"><a title="Home page" href="https://sf-encyclopedia.com/"><img id="sfeLogoSmall" src="/static/img/sfe.png" alt="SFE: The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction"><img id="sfeLogo" src="/static/img/logo.png" alt="SFE: The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction"></a><span class="logoArrow"></span></li> <li class="section-all"><a href="https://sf-encyclopedia.com/category/0">All entries</a></li> <li class="section-themes"><a href="https://sf-encyclopedia.com/category/theme">Themes</a></li> <li class="section-authors"><a href="https://sf-encyclopedia.com/category/everyone">People</a></li> <li class="section-media"><a href="https://sf-encyclopedia.com/category/media">Media</a></li> <li class="section-culture"><a href="https://sf-encyclopedia.com/category/culture">Culture</a></li> <li class="section-news"><a href="https://sf-encyclopedia.com/news/">News</a></li> </ul> </nav> </div> <div id="main"> <div class="colsWrapper clearfix"> <div class="column mainCol clearfix" style="background-color:white !important;"> <fieldset id="globalSearch"> <form name="srchenter" method="post" action="/search.php"> <select name="catfilter" class="searchFilter" style="width: 132px" title="Select entry category for headword or global search"> <option value="">Search all entries</option> <option value="chk">Checklist titles</option><option value="art">Art</option> <option value="author">Author</option> <option value="award">Award</option> <option value="character">Character</option> <option value="comics">Comics</option> <option value="community">Community</option> <option value="critic">Critic</option> <option value="editor">Editor</option> <option value="fan">Fan</option> <option value="film">Film</option> <option value="game">Game</option> <option value="house name">House Name</option> <option value="international">International</option> <option value="music">Music</option> <option value="people">People (media)</option> <option value="prelim">Prelim</option> <option value="publication">Publication</option> <option value="publisher">Publisher</option> <option value="radio">Radio</option> <option value="theatre">Theatre</option> <option value="theme">Theme</option> <option value="tv">TV</option> </select> <input name="search" type="text" value="" style="margin: 0 0 5px 0; width: 155px !important;" onFocus="this.select()" onClick="this.select()" onHover="this.select()" class="searchText" id="defaultOpen">  <input type="submit" value="Headwords" class="button primary" style="margin: 5px 0 0 0;; padding-left: 8px; padding-right: 8px">  <input type="submit" name="glob" value="Global search" class="button primary" style="margin: 5px 0 0 0; padding-left: 8px; padding-right: 8px"> <input type="text" name="eofmode" value="" hidden> <div style="display:none;"> <p style="margin: 0px; float: left;"><input type="radio" name="tomeselect" value="sfe" checked> <i>Search SFE</i>   <input type="radio" name="tomeselect" value="eof"> <i>Search EoF</i></p> <p style="margin: 0px; float: right;"> <input type="checkbox" Name="noxref">  <i>Omit cross-reference entries</i>  </p> <script> document.srchenter.search.focus(); document.addEventListener("keydown", function(event) { if (event.code == "PageDown" || event.code == "ArrowDown" || ( !event.getModifierState("NumLock") && (event.code == "Numpad2" || event.code == "Numpad3"))) { document.srchenter.search.blur(); } }) </script> </div> </form> </fieldset> <article class="entryArticle content STeditorial"> <header class="entryHeader icon-art"> <h1 class="entryTitle">Powers, Richard M </h1> </header><p class='tagLine'>Entry updated 9 January 2023. Tagged: Artist.</p><div class="browsingBtns"> <span> <input class="button PNI previous" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/next.php?id=p&entry=powers_richard_m'" value="Prev" /> </span> <span> <input class="button PNI next" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/next.php?&entry=powers_richard_m'" value="Next" /> </span> <span> <input class="button PNI incoming" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/incoming.php?entry=powers_richard_m'" value="About This Entry" title="What links to the entry; contributor initials explained; how to cite; other information" /> </span> <span><input class="button PNI" type="button" value="Checklist" onclick="window.location.hash='chklst'" ></span> <span><input class="button PNI" type="button" value="Alpha" onclick="window.location.href='/chron.php?id=powers_richard_m&abc'" ></span> <span><input class="button PNI" type="button" value="Chron" onclick="window.location.href='/chron.php?id=powers_richard_m'" ></span> <span style="cursor: pointer;" onclick="window.open('/gallery.php?link=powers_richard_m');"> <img alt="Icon made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com" style="margin: 0; position: relative; top:-2px;" src="/images/icon-gal.gif"></img></span> </div><p style='float:right; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:10px; position: relative; top: 3px;'> <a href='/gallery.php?id=Leiber-Pail.jpeg' target='_blank'> <img src='https://x.sf-encyclopedia.com/gal/thumbs/Leiber-Pail.jpeg' alt='pic'></a></p> <p>(1921-1996) US illustrator who on occasion worked also as Richard Powers, Dick Powers, Powers Laz/Org, Richard Powers Laz/Org, R M Powers, or just plain Powers. He studied art at the Mitzen Academy of the Chicago Art Institute (1939) and at the University of Illinois in Chicago (1940), then at the University of Kentucky while undergoing basic training for the US Army. After the end of World War Two he became seriously engaged in both writing and painting: "At the end of the war my father seems to have been waiting to see which would break first, writing or art," according to his son, Richard Gid Powers, in his long biographical introduction to Jane Frank's <i>The Art of Richard Powers</i> (<b>2001</b>). Art won out. Powers had begun work in sf <a href="/entry/illustration">Illustration</a> by 1950, his first client being <a href="/entry/doubleday">Doubleday</a>, where he also did mysteries and <a href="/entry/westerns">Westerns</a>. His first book cover commission was for Isaac <a href="/entry/asimov_isaac">Asimov</a>'s <i>Pebble in the Sky</i> (<b>1950</b>), which tentatively anticipates his mature style, his cover a few months later for Wilson <a href="/entry/tucker_wilson">Tucker</a>'s <i>The City in the Sea</i> (<b>1951</b>), published by Rinehart, being perhaps his first entirely typical work. His first magazine covers were two for <a href="/entry/galaxy">Galaxy Science Fiction</a> in February and April 1952. In that same year, his art was featured in a four-man show at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.</p> <p>When Ian Ballantine founded <a href="/entry/ballantine_books">Ballantine Books</a> in 1952 he approached Powers to do covers for him. Although his early work there was representational, in the conventional sf style of the day, as it had been at Doubleday, Powers soon, beginning with the cover for Arthur C <a href="/entry/clarke_arthur_c">Clarke</a>'s <i>Childhood's End</i> (<b>1953</b>), adopted a surrealist style that was much influenced by Yves Tanguy (1900-1955) and Joan Miró (1893-1983); although to modern eyes this might not seem unusual, it was a dramatic change of direction for sf book covers, creating an aura of respectability for texts where previously cover art had primarily emphasized thrills. This artistic approach rapidly became the trademark of Ballantine's 1950s sf. Powers's glowing and sometimes whimsical paintings are full of amorphous shapes, floating in space or over surreal landscapes, and have been enormously influential in sf illustration. He did a little more magazine-cover work, but most of his prolific sf cover illustration was for books – for <a href="/entry/ballantine_books">Ballantine Books</a>, Pocket Books, Berkley Books, MacFadden, Dell and others. Not all of his cover illustration was for sf; he worked in other fields as well, including children's books.</p> <p>After the death of his first wife, Evelyn Schaeffer, in 1966, Powers's prodigious output of commercial illustration temporarily decreased, not just because of the emotional devastation but also because she had been his principal liaison with the art directors who commissioned his work, and because, anyway, he had always felt his commercial work was a distraction from his real purpose as a fine artist. In this context, he had regular one-man shows at New York's Rehn Gallery, and his work is represented in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. For both illustration and fine art Powers employed a diversity of media. Much of his painting was done in oils or acrylics, but he was just as willing to render illustrations in inks, woodcuts or watercolours, and his fine art might well incorporate <i>objets trouvés</i>.</p> <p>With Richard Powers's work, the packaging of sf could be said to have come of age. Covers no longer required glamorous space girls or technological hardware, and surrealism captured sf's disturbing essence just as strongly as ray-guns or monsters. A portfolio of his work was published as <i>Spacetimewarp: Paintings</i> (<b>1983</b>). Powers's great contribution went unrecognized by either the <a href="/entry/chesley_awards">Chesley Awards</a> or the <a href="/entry/hugo">Hugos</a>, but he received the <a href="/entry/frank_r_paul_award">Frank R Paul Award</a> in 1983 and on 21 June 2008 was posthumously inducted into the <a href="/entry/sf_hall_of_fame">Science Fiction Hall of Fame</a>. [PN/JG/JGr]</p> <h3 id="chklst">Richard Michael Gorman Powers</h3> <p><b>born</b> Chicago, Illinois: 24 February 1921</p> <p><b>died</b> Madrid, Spain: 9 March 1996</p> <p><b>works</b></p> <p><input type="button" value="Alphabetical" class="button PNI" onclick="window.location.href='/chron.php?id=powers_richard_m&abc'"> <input type="button" value="Chronological" class="button PNI" onclick="window.location.href='/chron.php?id=powers_richard_m'"></p> <ul class="x"> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=Spacetimewarp+Paintings&field-author=Powers+Richard+M" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">Spacetimewarp: Paintings</a></em> (Garden City, New York: Nelson Doubleday/SFBC, <b>1983</b>) [chap: portfolio: pb/Richard Powers]</li> </ul> <p><b>further reading</b></p> <ul class="x"> <li>Jane Frank. <em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=The+Art+of+Richard+Powers&field-author=Jane+Frank" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">The Art of Richard Powers</a></em> (London: Paper Tiger, <b>2001</b>) with biographical introduction by Richard Gid Powers and foreword by Vincent <a href="/entry/di_fate_vincent">Di Fate</a> [nonfiction: graph: hb/Richard Powers]</li> </ul> <p><b>links</b></p> <ul class="x"> <li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.richardmpowers.com/">The Science Fiction Cover Art of Richard M Powers</a></li> <li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?1811">Internet Speculative Fiction Database</a></li> <li><a target="_blank" href="https://sf-encyclopedia.com/gallery.php?link=powers_richard_m">Picture Gallery</a></li> </ul> <p><b>previous versions of this entry</b></p> <ul><li><a href='https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/powers_richard_m' target='_blank'>Internet Archive</a></li></ul><br /><br /></article></div> <div class="sideBarsWrapper"> <div class="sideBarsColsWrapper clearfix"> <div class="column sideBar12 clearfix"> <div class="columnForm"><aside id="blogFeed" class="widget"> <div class="content STeditorial clearfix"> <h2>Recently visited entries<span style="background:url(/images/thingSFE2.png) !important"></span></h2><ul style='width: 50%; float: left;'> </ul> <p align=center style="float:right; padding-top:20px; padding-bottom:20px;">ISSN 3049-7612<br /> <a href="/facts.php?id=logo"> <img src="/images/VitMan.gif" width=150 height=150 title="Click for larger version of this SFE logo"></a><br /> <b><a href="/donate.php"><img src="/images/Paypal-Donate.gif" WIDTH="92" HEIGHT="26" BORDER="0" /></a><br /><a href="/">Home/Welcome page</a></b></p><div style="margin-bottom:10px;"></div></div> </aside><aside id="blogFeed" class="widget"> <div class="content STeditorial clearfix"> <h2><i>SFE</i> Special Features<span></span></h2><p style="margin-top: 10px;"><input type="button" value="What’s New" style="width: 150px !important;" class="button primary" onclick="window.location.href='/whatsnew.php'">  Latest entries; <a href="/updated.php">latest updates</a></p> <p style="line-height:1.6em;"><input type="button" value="In Memoriam" style="width: 150px !important;" class="button primary" onclick="window.location.href='/timeline.php?rip'">  Recent deaths</p> <p style="line-height:1.6em;"><input type="button" value="On This Day" style="width: 150px !important;" class="button primary" onclick="window.location.href='/today.php'">  Anniversaries; also <a href="/timeline.php">Timeline</a></p> <p style="line-height:1.6em;"><input type="button" value="Gallery" style="width: 150px !important;" class="button primary" onclick="window.location.href='/gallery.php'">  <i>SFE</i> Picture Gallery; <a href="/gallery.php?list&new">What’s New</a></p> <p style="line-height:1.6em;"><input type="button" value="Shopping" style="width: 150px !important;" class="button primary" onclick="window.location.href='/sfeshop.php'">  Affiliate settings</p> <p style="line-height:1.6em;"><input type="button" value="Random" style="width: 150px !important;" class="button primary" onclick="window.location.href='/random.php'">  Show a random <i>SFE</i> entry</p> <p style="line-height:1.6em;"><input type="button" value="SFE Facts" style="width: 150px !important;" class="button primary" onclick="window.location.href='/facts.php'">  Bar charts, awards and more</p> <p style="line-height:1.6em;"><input type="button" value="Entry Data" style="width: 150px !important;" class="button primary" onclick="window.location.href='https://sf-encyclopedia.com/incoming.php?entry=powers_richard_m'">  Incoming links, who wrote it, etc</p> <p style="margin-bottom:15px;"><a href="/searching">Search help</a> | <a href="/rss.php" target="_blank">RSS feed</a> <img src="/static/img/external.gif"> | <a href="/fe/"><i>Encyclopedia of Fantasy</i></a> <img src="/static/img/external.gif"></p><div style="margin-bottom:10px;"></div></div> </aside><aside id="connect" class="widget"> <div class="content STeditorial clearfix"> <h2>Connect with <i>SFE</i> <span></span></h2> <ul> <li> <h3 style="text-align: left !important;"><a href="/donate.php">Donate towards <i>SFE</i> expenses</a></h3> </li> <li> <h3 style="text-align: left !important;"><a href="/contact.php">Send email feedback to the <i>SFE</i> editors</a></h3> </li> <li style=" display:none;"> <h3 style="text-align: left !important;"><a href="https://twitter.com/john_clute" target="_blank">John Clute on Twitter [X]</a></h3> <a href="https://twitter.com/john_clute" class="twitter-follow-button">Follow @john_clute</a> <script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script> </li> <li style=" display:none;"> <h3 style="text-align: left !important;"><a href="https://twitter.com/sfencyclopedia" target="_blank"><i>SFE</i> on Twitter [X]</a></h3> <a href="https://twitter.com/sfencyclopedia" class="twitter-follow-button">Follow @sfencyclopedia</a> <script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script> </li> <li> <h3 style="text-align: left !important;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sf-Encyclopedia/138995776178949" target="_blank"><i>SFE</i> on Facebook</a></h3> </li> <li> <h3 style="text-align: left !important;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/john.clute.5" target="_blank">John Clute on Facebook</a></h3> </li> <li> <h3 style="text-align: left !important;"><a href="https://bsky.app/profile/sfencyclopedia.bsky.social" target="_blank"><i>SFE</i> on BlueSky</a></h3> </li> <li> <h3 style="text-align: left !important;"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@SF_Encyclopedia" target="_blank"><i>SFE</i> on Mastodon</a></h3> </li> </ul> </div> </aside> </div></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div id="cookieConsent"> <div id="closeCookieConsent" onclick="hidepopup()">x</div> This website uses cookies.  <a href="/cookies" target="_blank">More information here</a>. <a class="cookieConsentOK" onclick="setcookie()">Accept Cookies</a> </div> <script type="text/javascript"> function hidepopup() { document.cookie = "hidecookiepopup=yes; path=/"; // session only document.getElementById("cookieConsent").style.display = "none"; } function setcookie() { document.cookie = "cookiesOK=yes; max-age=31536000; path=/"; // 1 year document.getElementById("cookieConsent").style.display = "none"; } var cookiestring = document.cookie; // document.getElementById("connect").innerHTML = cookiestring; // TEST only if ( cookiestring.indexOf("cookiesOK=yes") == -1 ) { if ( cookiestring.indexOf("hidecookiepopup=yes") == -1 ) { document.getElementById("cookieConsent").style.display = "block"; } } </script> <div id="footer" style="background:#fff; padding: 5px;"> <footer id="globalFooter" class="clearfix"> <div id="credit">Website design by Ansible Editions </div> <div id="credit" style="float: left !important; padding-left:20px;">Site and <i>SFE</i> content © 2011-2024 John Clute & David Langford</div> </footer> </div> </div> </body></html>