Heade of the Class

I stumbled upon this post the other night while doing some research on authors and artists...

What a fun post.

J. Kingston Pierce writes in the web publication, "Limbo - The web site that's neither here or there," about book covers for crime detective novels. http://welcometolimbo.blogspot.com/

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Heade of the Class

Readers of this page probably know what a fan I am of ... vintage novels that were ... well, up-front in their commercial enticements. U.S. illustrator Robert McGinnis is a particular favorite of mine (see a gallery of his work here).

But I’ve also developed a fondness for R.A. Maguire and Walter Popp, as well as some of the artists currently working for Hard Case Crime (notably Greg Manchess, who did the front of Gil Brewer’s The Vengeful Virgin, and Glen Orbik, responsible for George Axelrod’s Blackmailer). Oh, and I can’t forget to mention Richie Fahey, who created the jacket of Megan Abbott’s The Song Is You, chosen by Rap Sheet visitors as one of the best covers of 2007.But somebody I’ve said less about is Reginald Heade, who’s been described as “probably the best British ‘girlie’ paperback cover artist of the 1950s.”

According to a quite wonderful site called Vintage Paperbacks: Good Girl Art,

"[Heade] was born in 1902 or 1903--there is no record of his birth in England. He died in 1957, leaving no children, no will and no evidence of his existence other than his signatures on those gorgeous covers he produced. And in 1954, he even stopped signing his work, when the publisher of the books he illustrated went to jail on obscenity charges. Heade produced over 300 covers, most of them impossible to find. He is not listed in any British standard artist references--no one even recalls meeting him. A true man of mystery.

He’s hardly been forgotten, though. Independent Crime’s Nathan Cain has showcased several of Heade’s pulp jackets as part of his “book porn” series. And there’s an abundance of his lurid work on the Web. There was also, apparently, a digest-size book published in 1991--Reginald Heade: England’s Greatest Artist, by Steve Chibnall--that contains “[a] biography of this prolific artist, plus a complete checklist of his work.” It’s long been out of print, but I have given serious thought to buying one of the last-remaining used copies, even if it’s at a premium.

[...]

If, when I sat down to write this post, I was intrigued by Reginald Heade, I now find myself still more curious about him and his work. In our modern age, it’s hard to imagine a publisher producing a title such as The Filly Wore a Rod, much less hiring an illustrator to give it a cover that is at once compelling and sexy as all hell. Heade remains a standout. Guess I’ll have to Steve Chibnall biography after all.

posted by J. Kingston Pierce at 4:54 PM Read the entire post here: Heade of the Class Lots of links and the images from the book covers are lots of fun.

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