Popp, Walter
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Artist.
(1920-2002) US illustrator, son of German-American muralist Gustave Gutgemon (1860-1952) and Austrian-American immigrant Kathe Popp (1880-? ). Popp sold his first Pulp magazine illustrations prior to the US entry into World War Two, in which he served until 1945, afterwards studying art for a time. From 1947 well into the 1950s, Popp sold a good deal of artwork in various genres to the pulps, including some two dozen known covers for SF Magazines. These were primarily for the Ziff-Davis chain's Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures; also for Thrilling Wonder Stories and its companion title Startling Stories. While much of Popp's sf artwork was routine, he handled erotic elements well enough when given the opportunity – as with the cover for the September 1952 Amazing, showing a discreetly naked woman in the grip of Waldoes controlled by a Mad Scientist figure. In the 1950s and 1960s Popp painted a number of covers for paperbacks and men's adventure magazines such as Man's World, then switched to packaging work for toy and sporting good manufacturers. Later in life, he and his wife Marie produced a number of collaborative covers for Gothic-romance fantasy novels, as well as work for fine art galleries. Much of his sf art has been reprinted over the years in specialist compilations of such material. [GSt/DRL]
Walter Robert Popp
born New York: 19 May 1920
died Paramus, New Jersey: 10 October 2002
links
previous versions of this entry