Jack Gaughan

From the 1940s until his death in 1985, Jack Gaughan created hundreds of book and magazine cover paintings and thousands of interior illustrations; he was one of the hardest working and most-recognized genre artists of his day.  

Gaughan graduated from the Dayton Art Institute where, as a student, he made his first professional sale. Working from his home studio in a large, bat-infested house in upstate New York, Gaughan painted and drew for many notable authors including Ursula K. Le Guin, Frank Herbert, Andre Norton, and Robert A. Heinlein. He was known to create as many as nine finished illustrations a day.  

From 1969 to 1974, Gaughan served as art director for Galaxy magazine while supplying the majority of the magazine’s interior artwork and many of its covers. He also created covers for If, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and others. For Ace books he painted the covers for the first (and unauthorized) US edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.    

Gaughan also regularly contributed to fanzines, and in 1967 he simultaneously won Hugo Awards for Best Professional Artist and Best Fan Artist. The New England Science Fiction Association’s Jack Gaughan Award for best emerging illustrator is named in his honor.