GURNEY, James

(1958-)

   US illustrator, raised in California, studied at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. JG made his sf debut with a cover for FSF in 1982, but his real baptism of fire that year was working as one of only two background painters on the animated SWORD-AND-SORCERY film Fire and Ice (1982). JG, who works in oils, primarily paints book covers; he hasalso done historic and prehistoric paintings for National Geographic. His style is one of the most painterly in sf since the retirement of John SCHOENHERR; in a field that emphasizes surface slickness, JG isrefreshing. His influences are eclectic, but include Norman Rockwell (1894-1978). His popular Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time (1992) is anart book, with text also by JG, telling of a 19th-century LOST WORLD in which humans coexist with intelligent dinosaurs.

   See also: ILLUSTRATION.