Gurney, James
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Artist.
(1958- ) US illustrator, raised in California, who studied at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Gurney made his sf debut with a cover for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1982, but his real baptism of fire that year was working as one of only two background painters on the animated Sword-and-Sorcery film Fire and Ice (1982). Gurney, who works in oils, primarily paints book covers; he has also done historic and prehistoric paintings for National Geographic. His style is one of the most painterly in sf since the retirement of John Schoenherr; in a field that emphasizes surface slickness, Gurney's work is refreshing. His influences are eclectic, but include Norman Rockwell (1894-1978). His popular Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time (1992) is an art book, with text also by Gurney, telling of a nineteenth-century Lost World on an Island where humans coexist with intelligent Dinosaurs. Both this book and its sequel Dinotopia: The World Beneath (1995) won him Hugos for best original artwork. Further solo volumes include Dinotopia: First Flight (1999) and Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara (2007); the setting also became a Shared World franchise. [JG/PN/DRL]
see also: Illustration.
James Gurney
born California: 14 June 1958
works
- Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time (Atlanta, Georgia: Turner Publishing, 1992) [hb/James Gurney]
- James Gurney's Dinotopia Pop-Up Book (Atlanta, Georgia: Turner Publishing, 1994) [hb/James Gurney]
- Dinotopia: The World Beneath (Atlanta, Georgia: Turner Publishing, 1995) [hb/James Gurney]
- Dinotopia: First Flight (New York: HarperCollins, 1999) [hb/James Gurney]
- Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara (Riverside, New Jersey: Andrews McMeel, 2007) [hb/James Gurney]
links
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