WESSO, H.W.

   Working name of German-born US illustrator Hans Waldemar Wessolowski (1894-?). HWW was educated at the Berlin Royal Academy. He emigrated to the USA in 1914, and soon found work as an illustrator (both covers and interiors) for a variety of magazines. When the Clayton magazine chain created ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION (then called Astounding Stories of Super-Science) in Jan 1930 they hired HWW, who painted all 34 covers ofthe Clayton ASF. His black-and-white ILLUSTRATION was similar to that of his contemporary Frank R. PAUL, but his colour paintings were very different; where Paul's were crowded and often artificially busy, HWW's-often watercolours - were more open, and he seemed more concernedwith the overall design of each piece. His best covers create an almost abstract beauty out of the conventional icons of SPACE OPERA. HWW did work for many sf magazines in the 1930s and early 1940s, including more for ASF in the late 1930s (more accomplished than before) and AMZ, Amazing Stories Quarterly, Captain Future, Marvel Science Stories, Startling Stories andTWS.

JG/PN