The Mystical, Evocative Art of Stephen Hickman

Hickman’s strengths are in the emotion, character, and wonder he infuses into scenes of fairytales, myths, and futuristic worlds. After decades of practice, he knows which lighting conditions are the most dream-like, and just how far to lower Galadriel’s eyelids to evoke her calm wisdom. For one painting of winged horses, he depicts their tails three times longer than a normal horse’s, as any realistic flying horse would need the extra length for directional stability.
Some art books feature too many paintings and too little context. Even worse, some have the reverse problem. This one walks the line perfectly: Hickman includes paragraph-long snippets to accompany most of his featured work. The end result is a guided tour rather than a wandering maze of wall-to-wall art.
The added details either boosted my appreciation for each work (Hickman reveals that he completed one stunning painting without working off a finished drawing) or revealed a fun insight into the art world (the New Britain Museums of Art have never held another fantasy art exhibit, as the first one proven so successful, curators “worried about structural damage to the museum building”). Technical notes also explain the oils, mediums, and canvases used for each work, though a lot of the info goes over my head.

One of Hickman’s most entertaining stories centers on a painting titled “Diver and Mermaid.” Originally a private commission, the painting received a second life when Hickman bought it back and sent it to famed speculative fiction author Harlan Elison, who had called him up to ask for unpublished paintings. Elison wrote an entire short story around the work, Midnight in the Sunken Cathedral, and it appeared in a Dream Corridor anthology with Hickman’s painting on the cover.
Hickman’s notes also include cheeky details, like a word of advice regarding dragons’ personalities: “The real trick with a dragon picture is to suggest the character of the creature,” he says. “After all, dragons can get away with a lot of attitude.” The dragon in question, a young Smaug, displays a cheery leer as he paces the parapets of Tolkien’s Angbad fortress.
This art collection is not just beautiful, it’s intriguing: an inner life is suggested by every image, even (or especially) when Hickman’s notes reveal that he made up the entire scenario out of whole cloth, rather than basing it on some text. In one work, a sorceress plucks a harp made from a horned skull in order to control “some sort of creatures” during the night. In another, King Arther looks into the middle distance as a formation of spaceships flies overhead. One entertaining scene features pulp adventure hero The Shadow as he hypnotizes a white tiger with the power of a fire-opal ring.
My favorites are the underwater pieces—the contrast of the scientific deep-sea diving equipment with the fantastical mermaids and sunken cities really appeals to me —but I also love the assorted vibrant versions of Hickman’s take on a tough task: illustrating H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space.”
A must for any lover of art collections, The Art of Stephen Hickman stands as one of the year’s best fantasy and sci-fi art books.