View source for Virgil Finlay

{{short description|American pulp fantasy, science fiction and horror illustrator}}
{{for|the 1971 collection of this artist's work|Virgil Finlay (book)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2021}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Virgil Finlay
| image = Virgil Finlay, December 1952.png
| imagesize = 
| alt = Virgil Finlay sitting, facing left, holding a cigarette
| caption = Finlay in December 1952
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1914|7|23|mf=y}}
| birth_place = [[Rochester, New York]], United States
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1971|1|18|1914|7|23|mf=y}}
| death_place = [[Westbury, New York]], United States<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/01/20/archives/virgil-finlay-dies-illustratr_was-56.html|title=Virgil Finlay Dies; Illustrator Was 56|date=January 20, 1971|work=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=September 17, 2017|archive-date=August 2, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180802102143/https://www.nytimes.com/1971/01/20/archives/virgil-finlay-dies-illustratr_was-56.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
| field = [[Illustration]]
| training = 
| movement = 
| works = 
| patrons =
| awards = {{Plain list|
* [[Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist]], 1944 (Retro Hugo awarded in 2019), 1945 (Retro Hugo awarded in 1996)
* [[Hugo Award|Hugo Award for Best Interior Illustrator]], 1953
* [[EMP Museum#Science Fiction Hall of Fame|Science Fiction Hall of Fame]], 2012
}}
}}

'''Virgil Finlay''' (July 23, 1914 &ndash; January 18, 1971) was an American [[pulp magazines|pulp]] [[fantasy]], [[science fiction]] and [[horror fiction|horror]] illustrator. He has been called "part of the pulp magazine history&nbsp;... one of the foremost contributors of original and imaginative art work for the most memorable science fiction and fantasy publications of our time."<ref name="Collins">Collins, Charles M. "Charles Collins Reviews Fables of Heroic Fantasy and Eldritch Horror". ''[[Castle of Frankenstein]]'' no. 6 [1964].</ref> While he worked in a range of media, from [[gouache]] to oils, Finlay specialized in, and became famous for, detailed pen-and-ink drawings accomplished with abundant [[stippling]], [[Hatching|cross-hatching]], and [[scratchboard]] techniques. Despite the very labor-intensive and time-consuming nature of his specialty, Finlay created more than 2600 works of graphic art in his 35-year career.<ref>''[http://thesefantasticworlds.com/2014/07/15/virgil-finlay-master-of-dark-fantasy-illustration/ Virgil Finlay: Master of Dark Fantasy Illustration] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181021032210/http://thesefantasticworlds.com/2014/07/15/virgil-finlay-master-of-dark-fantasy-illustration/ |date=October 21, 2018 }}'', website 'These Fantastic Worlds'.</ref>

The [[EMP Museum#Science Fiction Hall of Fame|Science Fiction Hall of Fame]] inducted Finlay in 2012.<ref name=sfhof2012/>

==Biography==
Virgil Warden Finlay was born July 23, 1914, in [[Rochester, New York]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Moskowitz|first=Samuel|title=Strange Horizons: The Spectrum of Science Fiction|location=New York|publisher=Scribner|date=1976|isbn=9780684147741|page=249}}</ref> His father, woodworker Warden Hugh Finlay, died at age 40 in the midst of the [[Great Depression]], leaving his family (widow Ruby and two children) in straitened circumstances. By his high school years, Virgil Finlay was exercising his passions for art and poetry, and discovered his lifelong subject matter in the [[pulp magazines]] of the era—science fiction in ''[[Amazing Stories]]'' (1927), fantasy and horror in ''[[Weird Tales]]'' (1928)—and began to exhibit at the age of 16. By age 21 he was confident enough in his art to send six pieces, unsolicited, to editor [[Farnsworth Wright]] at ''Weird Tales'', who determined that such detailed work would transfer successfully to relatively rough paper the magazine used ([[pulp magazines]] were so described because of their paper quality). Wright began buying Finlay's work, which debuted with illustrations of three different stories in the December 1935 issue<ref>[http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?61914 ''Weird Tales'' (December 1935) publication contents] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160917182349/http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?61914 |date=September 17, 2016 }}. ISFDB. Retrieved April 11, 2013.</ref> and appeared in 62 issues including the last in September 1954. He also created 19 color covers for ''Weird Tales'' numbers from February 1937 to March 1953.<ref name=isfdb/>

[[File:H.P.L. as Eighteenth-Century Gentleman.png|left|thumb|Finlay's illustration of H. P. Lovecraft as an eighteenth-century gentleman, 1937|alt=H. P. Lovecraft as an eighteenth-century gentleman]]

Finlay quickly branched out to other publications after his 1935 debut; he was an immediate hit.  In 1938 he went to work for [[A. Merritt]] at ''[[The American Weekly]]'', moving from Rochester to New York City. Later the same year, he married Beverly Stiles, whom he had known in childhood in Rochester (November 16, 1938), and at some point, converted to [[Judaism]]. In 1937, he made an illustration for the first installment of [[H. P. Lovecraft]]'s ''[[Supernatural Horror in Literature]]'', which was to be published in the ''Science-Fantasy Correspondent''. When that magazine was ceased publication, it was used on the cover of the April–May 1937 issue of the ''Amateur Correspondent''. This portrayal has become one of the more prominent artistic depictions of Lovecraft.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Joshi |first=S. T. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wk5ixOCy4eMC |title=A Dreamer and a Visionary: H. P. Lovecraft in His Time |date=2001 |publisher=[[Liverpool University Press]] |isbn=978-1-84631-299-1 |edition=First |series=Liverpool Science Fiction Texts and Studies |volume=26 |pages=380–381 |doi=10.5949/upo9781846312991 |jstor=j.ctt5vjhg7 |oclc=276177497 |author-link=S. T. Joshi}}</ref>

Finlay served in the US Army during World War II, and saw extensive combat in the [[South West Pacific theater]], notably on [[Okinawa Island|Okinawa]], and did posters and illustrations for the Morale Services during his three years of military service. He resumed his artistic career after demobilization, doing a considerable amount of work for science fiction magazines and books. As the pulp magazine market narrowed through the 1950s, Finlay turned to [[astrology]] magazines as a new venue for his art. In 1953 he won one of the inaugural [[Hugo Awards]], as the previous year's best "Interior Illustrator"; cover artists and interior illustrators were not thereafter distinguished by the [[Hugo Award for Best Artist]] under various names. He was also named the best artist of 1945 in the 50-year [[Retro Hugos]] of 1996.<ref name=SFAwards/>

Finlay also wrote poetry throughout his adult life. Virtually none was published in his lifetime, though significant samples have been printed posthumously.<ref>[http://www.reutel.nl/virgil_finlay "A Virgil Finlay Bibliography"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191228140224/http://www.reutel.nl/virgil_finlay/ |date=December 28, 2019 }}. reutel.nl. Retrieved 2013-09-13.<!-- As ''The Virgil Finlay Information Pages'' retrieved and used 2006--></ref>

Finlay had to undergo major surgery for cancer in early 1969. He recovered enough to go back to work for a time, but the cancer returned, and Finlay died on January 18, 1971, aged 56. (In the last year of his life, he suffered from liver failure. The cause of death was officially cirrhosis, but an autopsy revealed that he had advanced lung cancer.<ref>{{cite book|last=Moskowitz|first=Samuel|title=Strange Horizons: The Spectrum of Science Fiction|location=New York|publisher=Scribner|date=1976|isbn=9780684147741|page=270}}</ref>) Finlay just missed a resurgence in interest in his artwork from the early 1970s onward. Both [[Donald M. Grant, Publisher, Inc.|Donald M. Grant]] and Gerry de la Ree have published collections of Finlay's work since the artist's death. The later books published by [[Underwood-Miller]] contain illustrations from the Gerry de la Ree editions, as well as additional material. A slightly later generation of fantasy fans were introduced to Finlay's art by reprints of his earlier work in the horror film fan magazine ''[[Castle of Frankenstein]]'' alongside the fine writing that gave significance to that magazine.

''[[Roads (novel)|Roads]]'', a fantasy novella by [[Seabury Quinn]], first published in the January 1938 ''Weird Tales'', and featuring a cover and interior illustrations by Finlay, was published in a very limited edition by [[Arkham House]] in 1948. It was recently given a 21st-century facsimile reprinting by Red Jacket Press.

==Collections==

*''[[Virgil Finlay (book)|Virgil Finlay]]'' ([[Donald M. Grant, Publisher, Inc.|Donald M. Grant]], 1971)
*''[[Virgil Finlay: An Astrology Sketchbook|An Astrology Sketch Book]]'' (Donald M. Grant, 1975) introductions by Beverly C. Finlay and Robert Prestopino 
*''Finlay's Femmes'' (1976) – portfolio of drawings
*''Finlay's Illustrations for Weird Tales'' (Showcase Art Productions, 1976) – portfolio of drawings
*''Women of the Ages'' ([[Underwood-Miller]], 1992) 
*''Strange Science'' (Underwood-Miller, 1993)
*''Phantasms'' (Underwood-Miller, 1993)
*''Virgil Finlay's Far Beyond'' (Charles F. Miller, 1994)

===Books published by Gerry de la Ree===

*''Finlay's Lost Drawings: For Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream'' (1975) with Gerry de la Ree
*''The Book of Virgil Finlay'' (1976) 
*''Second Book of Virgil Finlay'' (1978)
*''The Third Book of Virgil Finlay'' (1979)
*''The Fourth Book of Virgil Finlay'' (1979)
*''The Fifth Book of Virgil Finlay'' (1979)
*''The Sixth Book of Virgil Finlay: The Astrology Years'' (1980)
*''The Seventh Book of Virgil Finlay – Virgil Finlay Remembered'' (1981)

==See also==
{{Portal bar |Speculative fiction |Visual arts }} <!-- delete the word "bar" if there are enough ordinary See also -->

==References==
{{Reflist |25em |refs=
<ref name=isfdb>
{{ISFDB name |1084}} (ISFDB). Retrieved April 10, 2013.</ref>

<!-- some awards refs -->
<ref name=sfhof2012>
{{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.empmuseum.org/exhibitions/index.asp?categoryID=203 |date=* |title="Science Fiction Hall of Fame: EMP Museum Announces the 2012 Science Fiction Hall of Fame Inductees" }}. May/June 2012. EMP Museum (''empmuseum.org''). Retrieved March 19, 2013.</ref>
<ref name=SFAwards>
[http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/NomArt13.html#1675 "Finlay, Virgil"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150222151053/http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/NomArt13.html |date=February 22, 2015 }}. ''The Locus Index to SF Awards: Index of Art Nominees''. [[Locus Publications]]. Retrieved April 9, 2013.</ref>
}}

==External links==
{{commons category}}
* {{ISFDB name |1084}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20190309155145/http://www.redjacketpress.com/authors/virgil_finlay.html Virgil Finlay] at Red Jacket Press
* {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20210126110946/http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/finlay.htm Virgil Finlay]}} at BPID
* [http://www.artnet.com/artists/virgil-finlay/ Virgil Finlay] at ArtNet
* [http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/finlay_virgil.html Virgil Finlay] at ArtCyclopedia
* [http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/virgil_finlay.htm Virgil Finlay and his Illustration of Cordwainer Smith Stories] at [[Cordwainer Smith]].com
* {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.empmuseum.org/exhibitions/index.asp?categoryID=203 |date=* |title=Virgil Finlay }} at the [[Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame]]<!--no personal webpages for 2012 inductees were archived; site was revamped 2012-09 --> 
* [http://www.worldfantasy2014.org/centennial.php World Fantasy Convention: 1914 Centennials Theme] at the 2014 convention website (Finlay is one theme)
* [https://archive.org/details/VirgilFinlayMasterOfFantasy_504 Virgil Finlay: Master of Fantasy] (1978)
* {{Gutenberg author | id=26786 |name=Finlay,+Virgil }}
* {{Internet Archive author}}

{{Society of Illustrators' Hall of Fame}}
{{Authority control}} <!-- |GND=112111432 altho same VIAF bundle is only a nameholder that links one work -->

{{DEFAULTSORT:Finlay, Virgil}}
[[Category:1914 births]]
[[Category:1971 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American illustrators]]
[[Category:Artists from Rochester, New York]]
[[Category:American fantasy artists]]
[[Category:American horror artists]]
[[Category:Place of death missing]]
[[Category:Pulp fiction artists]]
[[Category:American science fiction artists]]
[[Category:Science Fiction Hall of Fame inductees]]
[[Category:Golden Age comics creators]]