The marvelous illustrations of Virgil Finlay appear in many of my posts, while these two posts – Virgil Finlay – Dean of Science Fiction Artists, and, Further to Finlay, explore his life and work from a biographical slant. The image below is a small addition to the latter theme.
A photo of Virgil Finlay, his mother, and sister, I don’t think (hmmm…) that it’s thus far appeared on the Internet. I discovered it while perusing science fiction magazines and publications from a variety of other (offbeat!) genres, at the Luminist Archive. The photo appears in the 1974 edition (was it the only one?) of Gerry de la Ree’s Fantasy Collectors Annual.
Nothing all that fantastic about the image, but it does serve to show Virgil Finlay as a man like all men: simply as a person.
The caption appears below.
“FINLAY FAMILY PORTRAIT – Virgil Finlay, his mother, Ruby Cole Finlay, left; and his younger sister, Jean, posed for this picture outside their Rochester, N.Y., home in the 1930s about the time the young artist was breaking into the professional field as an illustrator for Weird Tales. This picture was presented to Gerry de la Ree in 1970 and is previously unpublished.”