Ed Emshwiller
Encyclopedia
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
covers and for his pioneering experimental films. He usually signed his illustrations as Emsh but sometimes used the signatures Ed Emsh and Emsler.
Born in Lansing, Michigan
Lansing, Michigan
Lansing is the capital of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located mostly in Ingham County, although small portions of the city extend into Eaton County. The 2010 Census places the city's population at 114,297, making it the fifth largest city in Michigan...
, he graduated from the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
in 1947, and then studied at École des Beaux Arts (1949-1950) in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
with his wife, writer Carol Emshwiller
Carol Emshwiller
Carol Emshwiller is an American writer of avant garde short stories and science fiction who has won prizes ranging from the Nebula Award to the Philip K. Dick Award. Ursula K...
(née Fries), whom he married on August 30, 1949. He also studied at the Art Students League of New York
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
(1950-51).
Between 1951 and 1979, Emshwiller created covers and interior illustrations for dozens of science fiction paperbacks and magazines, notably Galaxy
Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...
and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is a digest-size American fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Mystery House and then by Fantasy House. Both were subsidiaries of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Publications, which took over as publisher in 1958. Spilogale, Inc...
. During this time he won five Hugo Award
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
s for Best Artist: 1953 (tied with Hannes Bok
Hannes Bok
Hannes Bok, pseudonym for Wayne Francis Woodard , was an American artist and illustrator, as well as an amateur astrologer and writer of fantasy fiction and poetry. He painted nearly 150 covers for various science fiction, fantasy, and detective fiction magazines, as well as contributing hundreds...
), 1960, 1961, 1962 and 1964. There is no "typical" Emsh cover. His painterly treatment for the August 1951 Galaxy prefigures later work by Leo and Diane Dillon
Leo and Diane Dillon
Leo and Diane Dillon are an American husband and wife team of illustrators. Among their awards are two consecutive Caldecott Medals for the children's books Why Mosquitoes Buzz In People's Ears and Ashanti To Zulu: African Traditions....
.
Film and video
Emshwiller's footage of Bob DylanBob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
singing "Only a Pawn in Their Game
Only a Pawn in Their Game
"Only a Pawn in their Game" is a song written by Bob Dylan about the assassination of civil rights activist Medgar Evers. It was released on Dylan's The Times They Are a-Changin album of 1964...
" on July 6, 1963 at a Voters' Registration Rally in Greenwood, Mississippi
Greenwood, Mississippi
Greenwood is a city in and the county seat of Leflore County, Mississippi, United States, located at the eastern edge of the Mississippi Delta approximately 96 miles north of Jackson, Mississippi, and 130 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee. The population was 15,205 at the 2010 census. It is the...
, was shot for his 1963 documentary The Streets of Greenwood
Jack Willis
-Career:Jack Willis, an award winning documentary filmmaker and television producer, was the co-founder of Link TV a Direct Broadcast Satellite channel currently in over 34 million American homes via DirecTV and the Dish Network....
and appears in D. A. Pennebaker
D. A. Pennebaker
Donn Alan Pennebaker is an American documentary filmmaker and one of the pioneers of Direct Cinema/Cinéma vérité. Performing arts and politics are his primary subjects.-Biography:...
's film of Dylan, Dont Look Back
Dont Look Back
Dont Look Back is a 1967 documentary film by D.A. Pennebaker that covers Bob Dylan's 1965 concert tour in the United Kingdom.In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically...
.
In 1964, a Ford Foundation
Ford Foundation
The Ford Foundation is a private foundation incorporated in Michigan and based in New York City created to fund programs that were chartered in 1936 by Edsel Ford and Henry Ford....
grant allowed Emshwiller to pursue his interest in film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
. 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, while also working as a cinematographer on low-budget features and documentaries.
His films of the 1960s were mostly shot in 16mm color, and some of these included double exposures created simply by rewinding the cameras. Beginning with Scape-Mates (1972) he shifted to experiments in video, combining computer animation with live-action. In 1979, he produced Sunstone, a ground-breaking three-minute 3-D computer-generated movie made at the New York Institute of Technology
New York Institute of Technology
New York Institute of Technology is a private, non-sectarian, co-educational research university in New York City. NYIT has five schools and two colleges, all with a strong emphasis on technology and applied scientific research...
with Alvy Ray Smith
Alvy Ray Smith
Alvy Ray Smith III is an American engineer and noted pioneer in computer graphics. He is a co-founder of the animation studio Pixar.- Life and career :...
.
CalArts
After a period as artist-in-residence at the Television Laboratory WNET/13 (New York), he moved to California and served as dean of the School of Film/Video at the California Institute of Arts from 1979 to 1990. He also served as provost from 1981 through 1986. In 1987, he created his electronic video opera, Hunger, for the 1987 Los Angeles Arts Festival, in partnership with composer Morton SubotnickMorton Subotnick
Morton Subotnick is an American composer of electronic music, best known for his Silver Apples of the Moon, the first electronic work commissioned by a record company, Nonesuch...
. It was his last completed work, also presented in October 1989 at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria.
Archives and awards
Emshwiller died of cancer on July 27, 1990, in Valencia, CaliforniaValencia, California
Valencia is an affluent planned community located in the City of Santa Clarita, California and Los Angeles County, California, U.S. in the northwestern corner of the Santa Clarita Valley, adjacent to Interstate 5. In 1987, it was one of the four unincorporated communities that merged to create the...
, where he was cremated. His papers are archived at the California Institute of Arts. On June 16, 2007, Emshwiller was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in Seattle.
Books
- Ortiz, Luis, Ed Emshwiller, Carol Emshwiller, and Alex Eisenstein. Emshwiller: Infinity x Two: The Art & Life of Ed & Carol Emshwiller. New York: Nonstop Press, 2007. ISBN 978-1933065090
External links
Biography and criticism- Ed Emshwiller Calarts biography
- Ed Emshwiller, 65; Made Experimental Movies and Videos —New York Times obituary
- Ed Emshwiller at Video Data BankVideo Data BankVideo Data Bank is an international video art distribution organization and a resource in the United States for videos by and about contemporary artists...
- Emsh and Coye
Bibliography and works