With all the controversy going on over the family feud since the death of Mrs Ellie Frazetta last year let’s remember the great art that is the real legacy of Frank Frazetta and put up Death Dealer as this month’s Picture of the Month and hope that sense will eventually prevail in the Frazetta family. 

Death Dealer 1 by Frank Frazetta

The Phoenix conceived by Roger Garland

Phoenix poster by Roger Garland

This brilliant painting was painted by well-known  Tolkien artist Roger Garland way back and is one of the best depictions of the phoenix ever.  It was only ever reproduced as a large poster that for various reasons was poorly distributed making copies hard to find.  We were lucky to buy up the last of them from Roger Garland himself some years back and he signed them all with a silver pen.  A very impressive large image that will make you want to run around the room playing air guitar and singing the Wishbone Ash song!  If you can’t remember the words then here they are:

Bird rise high from the cinders
Leave it all behind

All the ruins and the fire

Bird raise your head from the ashes
Many men lay dead
You can see them like I

Phoenix rise
Raise your head to the sky

We continue our series of Picture of the Month with Mark Belo’s ‘Pray’ to kick of January 2010.  Mark Belo has been around for quite some time and we have had his Cosmodolphin etc on sale at www.artistsuk.co.uk for a few years.  recently however, he has produced some new work and this has been reproduced on canvas.  One of these is this lovely painting entitled ‘Pray’ -

You can see the full range of these beautiful works on canvas plus the earlier posters by clicking here.

Well given the controversy over the new film AVATAR and the alleged wholesale ripping off of Roger Dean’s ideas I guess it is only appropriate to make Roger Dean’s ‘Floating Islands’ our Picture of the Month for December.  Here it is:

This image of it is from the Roger Dean Floating Islands poster published by Pomegranate

The thing to remember is that Roger Dean was painting fantasy landscapes before most of those watching the film AVATAR were even born!  If you are under 35 years old then while you were gurgling and attempting to spray the entire room with your latest meal he was out there making amazing art like this.  Roger Dean is thought of as one of the greatest fantasy artists but he thinks of himself much more as a landscape artist and designer.  As is often the case, the works that Roger Dean is so famous for are not necessarily what he considers to be the main areas of his interest or expertise.  Whatever, his influence is tremendous and his surreal floating islands along with his waterfalls under water have captured the imagination of many people including it would now seem a film director called Cameron.