Flex Mentallo

I was hoping it might draw out a few of yours! I wonder if Pat has any paperback covers by him? Pat? That awesome Odyssey is hard to follow! What's next?

Steve - please do!!

Great Stuff Jon, I've been following with great interest! I'd also be very interested to know which are your favourite Centaur covers?

Yes, I think you guys are correct. The statue was the fourth image in my google search and credited to Gross. Now I've tracked the link back to the blog it is on and I find it is right below a pulp cover credited to Gross: http://michaelmay.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html So it must be a misattribution. (Knowing Gross was not a sculptor - at least as far as I know - I assumed - wrongly - that the statute was based on his work.) Great statue!

Their pulp work is quie similar from what I've seen. I think Saunders brushwork is a little looser than Gross. Each has quite distinctive ways of rendering the female face.

Sorry, BB. All I know is that the artwork is credited to Gross, and of course that it is Sheena. The features are typical Gross.

Like Norm Saunders, George Gross was a pulp artist before the war who gravitated to paperback then magazine covers in the post war period. Here is a mixture of covers from my collection augmented by some found on the net.

This is spectacularly cool! Sadko Sadko, a poor but spirited minstrel, wagers his head against the wealth of the Novgorod merchants that he will catch golden fish in the neighbouring Lake Ilmen. Aided by the Sea-King's daughter he wins, and embarks upon a voyage on one of the fleet of ships that have become his. Overtaken by storm, it is decided by the ship's company that one of their number must be offered as a sacrifice to the Sea-King. Lots are drawn, with the result that Sadko finds himself on a plank in mid-ocean. Entering the Sea-King's domain, he plays upon his gusli with such goodwill that the monarch and his court are soon engaged in a frenzied dance. A fierce gale ensues. St. Nicholas, intervening on behalf of seafarers above, dashes the gusli to the ground, orders Sadko home, and transforms the Sea-King's daughter, who has offered herself to the already married minstrel, into the river Volkhov, on which Novgorod now stands.

Baba Yaga The flying carpet

Oh - okay. Here are more of Vasnetsov: Birds of joy and sorrow Kaschev the immortal

Repin: Easter Procession at Kursk Repin: Cossacks

Vasnetsov: Knight at the Crossroads Vasnetsov: Sleeping Tsarina Vasnetsov: Elegy

Vasnetsov: The Magic Carpet Vasnetsov: The Snow Maiden Repin: Dancing Gopak

Wyeth's more highly realistic work is - to me at least - reminiscent of Russian Revivalist painting of the late 19th Century, whose leading proponents often turned to fairy tales for inspiration. Victor Vasnetsov: Ivan Tsarevich Riding the Grey Wolf And this is "Sadko", by Ilya Repin, a fairy tale which was also the subject of an opera by Rimsky Korsakov