Beyond Fantasy Fiction, featuring “Stream of Consciousness”, by Roy Hutchins – January, 1955 [Rupert Conrad]

It was a nice idea, but it came to an end: The tenth and final issue of Galaxy Publishing Corporation’s Beyond Fantasy Fiction, edited by Horace L. Gold.  The issue features cover art by Rupert Conrad, who also created the cover painting featured on the magazine’s second issue, that of January, 1954. 

Paralleling other cover illustrations featured by the magazine, the art has no direct relationship to any of the stories within, and instead simply sets up a mood, theme, and atmosphere.  In this case, a young woman – I’m certain she’s queen or princess rather than captive – rides atop a reptilian quadruped, surrounded by similarly mounted cavalry.  They were doubly-plumed helmets fashioned into caricatures of the human face, as they are marching into battle – but a battle to us, unknown. 

The ambiguity of the scene sets up an effect of an ancient, forgotten world, or a distant planet:  A world similar to earth, yet a world where history took a path very different.  And what of that world today?

But wait, there’s more!

Artist Rupert Conrad (1904-1979)…

…at Artland

…at FindAGrave

…at Internet Speculative Fiction Database

…at ICollector

…at AskArt

Beyond Fantasy Fiction, featuring “The Green Magician”, by L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt, November, 1954 [René Vidmer]

The November, 1954 issue of “Beyond Fiction” is is the fourth (that I know of!) cover illustration created by René Vidmer for the Galaxy Publishing Corporation, his prior works having illustrated the November, 1953 and July, 1954 issues of Beyond, and the August, 1953 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction.  A cursory internet search reveals remarkably little information about the man, other than his artography at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database – which indicates that his work in the fields of science-fiction and fantasy occurred between 1953 and 1955 – and, mention at artist and designer John Coulthart’s { feuilleton } blog.  Otherwise, he seems as enigmatic as his paintings.  

Like this one.

The ladies in this painting convey the same mood as does the cover of the magazine’s issue of November ’53: At first glance both young and attractive; on second glance one pale, ethereal and translucent; with third glance, the woman in the background is incomplete – surreal.  Are they ghosts?  Probably not, for on a closer look the background is not a cemetery, but instead a desolate, moss covered ruin conveying the passage of time.  The women – their spirits? – seem demure and shy, yet their subtle smiles reveal that they are not unhappy.  

They are content to tend; to contemplate, their garden. 

It is small, but it is theirs.