Hinge, Mike
Entry updated 29 July 2024. Tagged: Artist.
(1931-2003) New Zealand designer and illustrator, in US from around 1958 (his return to New Zealand in 1984 was brief), gaining considerable success for his early non-genre work, including two covers for Time Magazine (the emperor Hirohito, October 1971; President Nixon, November 1973). A "cryogenic module", commissioned by Stanley Kubrick to publicize 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), was never assembled. His later career was intermittent.
Hinge remains best known for his sf illustrations and covers, several of the former appearing in Analog, Amazing Stories and Fantastic, beginning with the October 1969 issue of the last. He also executed several covers for original titles by authors including Neal Barrett, Michael Bishop, George Alex Effinger, Ron Goulart and Mack Reynolds, as well as a number of reprints, mostly during the 1970s. This concentration, and the line-heavy electric intensity of his best work, generated a considerable impact, despite the relatively small amount of acknowledged commissions on record . The range of hieratic renderings of psychedelia-derived imagery assembled in The Mike Hinge Experience (graph 1973) conveys a vision of the iconic America he loved, deeply archaic in a Californian manner, as though reborn into a future. The seeming inactivity of his later years is regretted. [JC]
Michael Barry Hinge
born Auckland, New Zealand: 9 August 1931
died Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: 7 August 2003
works
- The Mike Hinge Experience (no place given: Supergraphics, 1973) [graph: portfolio: pb/Mike Hinge]
links
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