The Sci-fi and fantasy literature family suffered another great loss this week, my favorite cover artist: Darrel K. Sweet. I can’t tell you how many times I bought a book just because he painted the cover. As a budding child artist, I would draw his covers on my bedroom wall with colored pencils, some of which my mother actually painted “Frames” around to keep when she painted the rest of the wall. He was a huge influence on me artistically and imaginatively.
He had a very unique style that identified his artwork at a glance. With over 3,000 paintings completed, his art adorned the covers of many a well-loved book including such series as The Wheel of Time, Xanth and The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. I can’t imagine that the next Xanth and final Wheel of Time and Thomas Covenant books will not be graced by his artwork wrapped around it.
They always say, “You can’t judge a book by it’s cover” but you could if it featured art by Darrel K. Sweet.
From Locus Online:
Artist Darrell K. Sweet, 77, died December 5, 2011. Sweet’s first illustrations were for Ballantine Books in 1975, and when the Del Rey imprint was formed in 1977, he produced many of their covers. Since then he has created illustrations for most of the major SF publishers, including Berkeley, Ace, and Tor. He is perhaps now best known for his illustrations of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, but he also produced memorable covers for Stephen R. Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Xanth series by Piers Anthony, and novels by Jack L. Chalker, Terry Brooks, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., and many others.
Sweet was born in 1934 in New Brunswick NJ, and graduated from Syracuse University in 1956 with a degree in fine arts. He already had a reputation as a painter of animals, still lifes, and pastoral scenes when he started illustrating SF. He was nominated for a professional artist Hugo in 1983, and was a Chesley Award finalist many times.