WHELAN, Michael

(1950-)

   US illustrator, in his popularity the heir to Frank Kelly FREAS. He has won 11 HUGOS (Freas won 10), of which 10 have been for Best Professional Artist - every year 1980-86, and again in 1988, 1989 and 1991; the other was for Best Nonfiction in 1988 for Michael Whelan's Works of Wonder (1987), a book collecting some of his work. A Californian, MW studied art and biology at San Jose State University and then worked at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. In 1975 he began painting covers for DAW BOOKS, then for ACE BOOKS and MARVEL COMICS, and soon for other paperback houses including DEL REY BOOKS, earning high praise for his work on several series, such as reissues of Edgar Rice BURROUGHS's Barsoom books and Michael MOORCOCK's Elric books. His popularity increasedon publication of Wonderworks (1979), collecting his work, which was a bestseller (in art-book terms); it was for his 1979 publications that he won his first Hugo. MW continually tops the LOCUS poll (AWARDS) for Best Artist by a very substantial margin. He has dominated sf book-coverILLUSTRATION right through the 1980s. He is given many of the most prestigious commissions, and his original work fetches astonishingly high prices at sf art auctions. MW has spoken of his consciousness that it was during the 1980s that sf art became - at least at the top - a well paid profession for almost the first time. His huge popularity is difficult to explain or analyse, though his work is clearly very proficient: vivid, colourful, meticulous, giving an appearance of naturalism no matter how "alien" his subject, and highly finished - if occasionally a littlelanguid. Often he adopts a fully realistic approach; sometimes surreal objects hover enigmatically. He has acknowledged a debt to his UK colleagues, and certainly MW's style can be compared with that of, say, Jim BURNS; it is probably not coincidental that Burns was the first artistto break MW's run of Hugos (and that was in a year when MW withdrew from the Hugo contest).

   PN/JG