James Gurney

James Gurney (born June 14, 1958) is an artist and author best known for his illustrated book series Dinotopia, which is presented in the form of a 19th-century explorer’s journal from an island utopia cohabited by humans and dinosaurs. He lives in Rhinebeck, New York, in the Hudson Valley of New York State. Gurney is also a confirmed paleoartist who depicts and restores in his paintings extinct fauna such as both avian and non-avian dinosaurs.

James Gurney
Born (1958-06-14) June 14, 1958
NationalityAmerican
EducationArt Center College of Design
Alma materUniversity of California, Berkeley
Known forIllustration, paleoart

Early life

Gurney grew up in Palo Alto, California, the youngest of five children of Joanna and Robert Gurney, a mechanical engineer.[1] Encouraged to tinker in the workshop, he built puppets, gliders, masks, and kites, and taught himself to draw by means of books about the illustrators Howard Pyle and Norman Rockwell.

He studied archaeology at the University of California, Berkeley, receiving a BA in Anthropology with Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1979. He then studied illustration at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California for a couple of semesters. Prompted by a cross-country adventure on freight trains, he and Thomas Kinkade coauthored The Artist’s Guide to Sketching in 1982. Gurney and Kinkade also worked as painters of background scenes[2] for the animated film Fire and Ice, co-produced by Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta.[3]

Work

Gurney's freelance illustration career began in the 1980s, during which time he developed his characteristic realistic renderings of fantastic scenes, painted in oil using methods similar to the academic realists and Golden Age illustrators. He painted more than 70 covers for science fiction and fantasy paperback novels, and he created several stamp designs for the US Postal Service, most notably The World of Dinosaurs in 1996.

Starting in 1983, he began work on over a dozen assignments for National Geographic, including reconstructions of the ancient Moche, Kushite, and Etruscan civilizations, and the Jason and Ulysses voyages for Tim Severin.

The inspiration that came from researching these archaeological reconstructions led to a series of lost world panoramas, including Waterfall City (1988) and Dinosaur Parade (1989). With the encouragement of retired publishers Ian and Betty Ballantine, he discontinued his freelance work and committed two years’ time to writing and illustrating Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time, which was published in 1992. The book landed on the New York Times Bestseller List, and won Hugo, World Fantasy, Chesley, Spectrum, and Colorado Children’s Book awards. It sold over a million copies and was translated into 18 languages.[4]

Sequels of Dinotopia that are both written and illustrated by Gurney include Dinotopia: The World Beneath (1995), Dinotopia: First Flight (1999), and Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara (2007). Original artwork by Gurney from the Dinotopia books has been exhibited at the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution, the Norman Rockwell Museum, the Royal Tyrrell Museum and is currently on tour to museums throughout the United States and Europe.

Most recently, he has written two art instruction books: Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist (2009), a book about drawing and painting things that don't exist,[5] and Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter (2010).[6] These books are based upon Gurney's blog posts, in which he gives practical advice to realist and fantasy artists. On Tuesday, February 21, 2012, Gurney was inducted as a Living Master by the Art Renewal Center.[7] [8]

The dinosaur Torvosaurus gurneyi was named in honour of Gurney in 2014.[9]

References
  1. Jackson, Donald Dale. "Daring Deeds, Bold Dreams, in a Land Removed from Time", page 73. Smithsonian, September 1995
  2. Bensimhon, M. “Living with Dinosaurs: Inside the Mind of a Man who Makes Fantasy Seem Real", page 54. Life Magazine, October 1992
  3. Robinson, S. (1997). "James Gurney: Artist and Author Extraordinaire (b. 1958)". Rocks & Minerals. 72 (5): 335–338. doi:10.1080/00357529709605061.
  4. Parks, John. "Fact & Fantasy: The Paintings of James Gurney," p. 43. American Artist, November 2006
  5. Gurney, James (20 October 2009). Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist. ISBN 978-0-7407-8550-4. LCCN 2009015708.
  6. Gurney, James (30 November 2010). Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter. ISBN 978-0-7407-9771-2. LCCN 2010924512.
  7. "James Gurney: ARC Living Master".
  8. "Art Renewal Center". 21 February 2012.
  9. Hendrickx, C.; Mateus, O.V. (2014). Evans, Alistair Robert (ed.). "Torvosaurus gurneyi n. sp., the Largest Terrestrial Predator from Europe, and a Proposed Terminology of the Maxilla Anatomy in Nonavian Theropods". PLOS ONE. 9 (3): e88905. Bibcode:2014PLoSO...988905H. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0088905. PMC 3943790. PMID 24598585.

Further reading
  • Debus, Allen A. (2006). Dinosaurs in Fantastic Fiction: A Thematic Survey (1st ed.). Jefferson, North Carolina, and London: McFarland & Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7864-2672-0.
  • Hintz, Carrie; Elaine Ostry (2003). Utopian and Dystopian Writing for Children and Young Adults. New York and London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-94017-6.
  • Reed, Walt (2001). The Illustrator in America 1860–2000. New York, NY: Watson-Guptill Publications. ISBN 0-8230-2523-3.
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