Researching the history of the artwork below led me on an interesting trail. It was originally from a 60’s pulp crime novel entitled ‘The Damnation of Adam Blessing‘. That was published under the name of Vin Packer, but was actually written by Marijane Meaker, who went on to write award winning adult fiction and be given the Trailblazer Award for groundbreaking work in lesbian fiction. She also at one pointed dated Patricia Highsmith. The title of the book went on to inspire the name of an acid rock band in the late 60’s.
I’m always a sucker for crime novels from this era as well as the dramatic and lurid artwork they often feature. I may have to hunt this particular one down.
Despite tracking down a lot of the background on the book, I sadly couldn’t find a name for the cover artist.
Updated: Thanks to a very helpful comment from francois I can now attribute this to Robert McGinnis. He is a prolific illustrator of book and movie covers.
http://pulpinternational.com/pulp/keyword/sm.html?next=120
“The Damnation of Adam Blessing, Vin Packer, Marijane Meaker, Patricia Highsmith, Robert McGinnis, cover art, literature”
Thanks! Appreciate the pointer. I’ve updated the post with the attribution.
-paltego
(Vin Packer was actually one of several pseudonyms used by author Marijane Meaker, who wrote the very popular lesbian pulp novel Spring Fire in 1952, and later wrote several nonfiction books about gay men and lesbians.)
Yes. I mentioned her in the post, but didn’t get too deep into her background. Hopefully anyone interested can follow the wikipedia link. Seems like someone with a very interesting background and life.
Thanks for commenting and helping me track the artist down!
-paltego