A lurid and outright creepy cover painting by Nicholas Solovioff for the August, 1955 edition of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, loosely illustrated the interior story Bride In Danger. A beautiful corpse, a once blushing bride on her honeymoon, is now found alone on a desolate beach, bloodied and left in the open air and sun. Was she the victim of a ship wreck or foul play? A grey and foreboding sky and crumpled newspaper blowing in the breeze add to the mystery and darkness. Painting has been professionally matted and shrink wrapped and is ready for framing. A copy of the published magazine is included in the sale.

 

 

 

 

 

Nicholas Solovioff (1927-1994)Nicholas Solovioff is a prolific illustrator, having done covers for the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Fortune, Sports Illustrated, Horizon, Readers Digest and the Smithsonian. He also illustrated articles in Fortune and illustrated some of the Time-Life books. He specialized in illustrating architecture, technology, science, and nature. In addition to illustration of magazines, he has done technical illustration for government contracted technical manuals and architectural proposals for Philip Johnson and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. He was the artist in residence for the Port of New York Authority. Solovioff was educated at Harvard, where he began studying astronomy, physics, and math, but he eventually switched to art history. After obtaining a BA, he got an MFA from Harvard and all but completed a Ph.D as well. He taught art history, drawing, painting, and sculpture at the Fogg Museum (Harvard) while working towards a Ph.D. He also taught at the Parsons School of Design. Solovioff served in WWII in the US Army and later as a combat artist for the US Marine Corps in Vietnam.