Close Encounters In Acapulco

Full view of illustration

The artwork as it appeared in the pages of Chic Magazine, December, 1977. Attached to back of framing.

Framed and matted behind glass view

An other-worldy science fiction themed interior editorial illustration by the British illustrator Peter Lloyd for the December 1977 issue of Chic Magazine. For a story titled Close Encounters In Acapulco by Don Strachan. The story's tag line reads... "When the world's top UFO experts met in Mexico, they turned out to be as spacey as the saucers". The tale would appear to be a page turner of epic proportions, the illustration features an alien hitch hiker alongside colorful Mexican desert terrain with a retro American automobile filled with seemingly bratty kids whizzing by. The artist deftly mixes the cosmic California underground art scene with American car culture, as well as the alien craze of the late 1970s as seen in feature films such as Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, and the first Star Wars film which came out this same year of 1977. A printed published 2 page cut from Chic magazine is included in the sale, the work is handsomely framed and silk matted under glass.

Detail

Back view of painting with attached story illustration

Peter Lloyd (1944-2009) was a freelance illustrator specializing in advertising and digital artwork. Lloyd was born in England in 1944, but moved to the United States in 1959, where he was the youngest student to graduate from the Art Center College of Design with a master's degree.

Lloyd provided art to several large advertising clients in the 1960s, including National Geographic and the National Football League. He also illustrated for magazines such as Playboy and Esquire.

He procured several berths in the feature film industry during the late 1970s and 1980s, including a job doing conceptual work for Walt Disney Productions in 1982; most notably, Lloyd worked on creating and refining digital effects for the 1982 film Tron. Lloyd has since worked with many other motion picture clients such as Paramount Pictures, often as a conceptual or storyboard artist.

In 1993, Lloyd joined Santa Barbara Studios as an art director for the 1995 film 500 Nations, and later worked extensively with the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum on the 1996 IMAX documentary Cosmic Voyage.

Lloyd has won several awards, including the New York Society of Illustrators Gold Medal Award.