Ed Emshwiller | |
|---|---|
 Emshwiller circa 1984 | |
| Born | Edmund Alexander Emshwiller (1925-02-16)February 16, 1925 Lansing, Michigan, U.S. |
| Died | July 26, 1990(1990-07-26) (aged 65) |
| Alma mater | University of Michigan |
| Spouse | Carol Emshwiller (née Fries) |
Edmund Alexander Emshwiller (February 16, 1925 – July 27, 1990) was anAmericanvisual artist notable for hisscience fiction illustrations and his pioneering experimental films. He usually signed his illustrations asEmsh but sometimes usedEd Emsh,Ed Emsler,Willer and others.[1][a]
Born February 16, 1925, inLansing, Michigan,[3] he graduated from theUniversity of Michigan in 1947, and then studied atÉcole des Beaux Arts (1949–1950) inParis with his wife, novelistCarol Emshwiller (née Fries), whom he married on August 30, 1949. He also studied at theArt Students League of New York (1950–1951).[4]
From 1951 to 1979, while living inLevittown, New York, Emshwiller created covers and interior illustrations for dozens of science fiction paperbacks and magazines, notablyGalaxy Science Fiction andThe Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.[5] He debuted in thepulp magazines with about 50 interior illustrations and four cover paintings for the May to December 1951 issues ofGalaxy, a monthly edited byH. L. Gold.[1] In that year or 1952 he also did his first book cover for the U.S. paperback edition ofOdd John (Galaxy Publishing Corp.)[1] Because he experimented with a diversity of techniques, there is no typical Emsh cover. His painterly treatment for the August 1951 cover ofGalaxy Science Fiction prefigures later work byLeo and Diane Dillon.
Thanatopsis (1962), featuring brother Mac Emshwiller and sharing the title withWilliam Cullen Bryant's 1817 poem,[6] was his first five-minute film. In 1964, aFord Foundation grant allowed Emshwiller to pursue his interest in film. Active in the New American Cinema movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, he created multimedia performance pieces and did cine-dance and experimental films, such as the 38-minuteRelativity (1966).[7] He also was a cinematographer on documentaries, such asEmile de Antonio'sPainters Painting (1972), and feature films, such asTime of the Heathen (1962) andAdolfas Mekas'Hallelujah the Hills (1963).
Emshwiller's footage ofBob Dylan singing "Only a Pawn in Their Game" on July 6, 1963, at a Voters' Registration Rally inGreenwood, Mississippi, was shot for Jack Willis' 1963 documentaryThe Streets of Greenwood and appears inD. A. Pennebaker's Dylan documentary,Dont Look Back (1967). For theUS Information Agency, he directedFaces of America (1965),Art Scence, USA (1966), andProject Apollo (1968) and his work appeared in the Agency'sThe 21st Century: The Shape of Films to Come (1968), a film that presents examples of films shown atExpo '67 that feature startling new visual effects and innovations.Filme with Three Dancers was made in 1970.
His films of the 1960s were mostly shot in 16mm color, and some of these included double exposures created simply by rewinding the cameras. He was one of the earliest video artists. WithScape-Mates (1972), he began his experiments in video, combining computer animation with live-action. In 1979, he producedSunstone, a groundbreaking three-minute 3-D computer-generated video made at theNew York Institute of Technology withAlvy Ray Smith.[8] Now in the Museum of Modern Art's video collection,Sunstone was exhibited at SIGGRAPH 79, the 1981 Mill Valley Film Festival and other festivals. In 1979, it was shown on WNET'sVideo/Film Review, and aSunstone frame was used on the front cover ofFundamentals of Interactive Computer Graphics, published in 1982 by Addison-Wesley.[9]
After a period as artist-in-residence at the Television Laboratory WNET/13 (New York), where he worked on the effects forThe Lathe of Heaven among other projects, he moved to California, where he was the founder of the CalArts Computer Animation Lab and served as provost and dean of the School of Film/Video at theCalifornia Institute of Arts from 1979 to 1990. He also served as provost from 1981 through 1986.[10] In 1987, he created his electronic video operaHunger for the 1987 Los Angeles Arts Festival, in partnership with composerMorton Subotnick. It was his last completed work, also presented in October 1989 at theArs Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria.
Among Enshwiller's neighbors in Levittown wasBill Griffith, later acclaimed for hisZippy syndicated comic strip. Griffith's parents sometimes posed as models for Emshwiller's illustrations. Griffith, who credited Emshwiller as an influence on his becoming an artist, was painted by Emshwiller into the front cover ofOriginal Science Fiction (September 1957). Griffith commented, "He didn't point me to cartooning, but he pointed me into art in general and showed me a way of understanding how within one artist, there could exist this pop culture impulse and a fine art impulse."[11]
Emshwiller won one of the inauguralHugo Awards in 1953, as the previous year's best "Cover Artist" (a tie withHannes Bok). Cover artists and interior illustrators were not thereafter distinguished by theHugo Award for Best Artist under various names; he won four more during the 1960s under the current "Professional Artist" distinction.[12] On June 16, 2007, he became the third artist inducted by theScience Fiction Hall of Fame.[13][b] His paintings of aliens were displayed in theAlien Encounters exhibition of the Science Fiction Museum, which houses the hall of fame, at that time (September 10, 2006, to October 30, 2007).
His papers are archived at the California Institute of Arts.
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Carol and Ed Emshwiller had three children—Eve Emshwiller, screenwriter Susan Emshwiller (Pollock) and actor-novelist StoneyPeter Emshwiller (The Host,Short Blade).[15] Family members, including his brother Maclellan Emshwiller, often served as models in his illustrations. Carol and Eve Emshwiller can be seen on aGalaxy Science Fiction cover (January 1957).
Emshwiller died of cancer on July 25, 1990, inSanta Clarita, California, where he was cremated.[16]
