Editing Ed Emshwiller

{{Short description|American illustrator and filmmaker (1925–1990)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2023}}
{{Infobox artist
| name          = Ed Emshwiller
| image         = Ed Emshwiller, RIT NandE Vol16Num9 1984 Nov8 Complete.jpg
| alt           = 
| caption       = Emshwiller circa 1984
| birth_name    = Edmund Alexander Emshwiller 
| birth_date    = {{birth date|1925|02|16}}
| birth_place   = [[Lansing, Michigan]], U.S.
| death_date    = {{death date and age|1990|07|27|1925|02|16}}
| death_place   = [[Santa Clarita, California]], U.S.
| spouse        = [[Carol Emshwiller]] (née Fries)
| alma_mater    = [[University of Michigan]]
| field         = 
| training      = 
| movement      = 
| works         = 
| awards        = 
}}

'''Edmund Alexander Emshwiller''' (February 16, 1925 – July 27, 1990) was an [[American people|American]] [[visual artist]] notable for his [[science fiction]] illustrations and his pioneering experimental films. He usually signed his illustrations as '''Emsh''' but sometimes used '''Ed Emsh''', '''Ed Emsler''', '''Willer''' and others.<ref name=isfdb/><!--ISFDB lists 10 alternative names-->{{efn|From 1951 at least to the mid-1960s,<!--tired of checking--> he was generally "Emsh" or "Ed Emsh" for pulp magazine covers and Ed Emshwiller for book covers. He used those names routinely for interior illustrations only after a couple years when he was more often "Willer" or "Ed Emsler" or "Ed Alexander". Evidently he debuted in May 1951 as Willer for the serial novel ''Mars Child'' (''Outpost Mars'') and Emsh for two other stories in the same issue.<ref name="ISFDB Galaxy July 1951">{{Cite web |title=Publication: Galaxy Science Fiction, July 1951 |url=http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?58538 |publisher=[[Internet Speculative Fiction Database]] |access-date=June 14, 2023}}</ref>[http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?58587] For June and July (when the novel concluded) he did the covers as Emsh and Willer respectively. He was Willer as illustrator of the novel; Emsh and Ed Alexander for two other July stories.<ref name="ISFDB Galaxy July 1951"/><ref name=isfdb/>}}

== Background and early career ==
Born February 16, 1925, in [[Lansing, Michigan]],<ref>{{cite news|last=Ortiz|first=Luis|title=Ed Emshwiller: The Art of Things to Come|work=Illustration Magazine|date=February 2007|page=85}}</ref> He graduated from the [[University of Michigan]] in 1947, and then studied at [[École des Beaux Arts]] (1949–1950) in [[Paris]] with his wife, novelist [[Carol Emshwiller]] (née Fries), whom he married on August 30, 1949. He also studied at the [[Art Students League of New York]] (1950–1951).<ref name=blau>[https://www.nytimes.com/1990/08/02/obituaries/ed-emshwiller-65-made-experimental-movies-and-videos.html "Ed Emshwiller, 65; Made Experimental Movies and Videos"]. Eleanor Blau. ''The New York Times''. August 2, 1990.</ref>

== Illustrator ==
From 1951 to 1979, while living in [[Levittown, New York]], Emshwiller created covers and interior illustrations for dozens of science fiction paperbacks and magazines, notably ''[[Galaxy Science Fiction]]'' and ''[[The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction]]''.<ref>{{sfhof |933 |Ed Emshwiller}}. Archived July 22, 2012.</ref> He debuted in the [[pulp magazines]] with about 50 interior illustrations and four cover paintings for the May to December 1951 issues of ''Galaxy'', a monthly edited by [[H. L. Gold]].<ref name=isfdb/> In that year or 1952 he also did his first book cover for the U.S. paperback edition of ''[[Odd John]]'' (Galaxy Publishing Corp.)<ref name=isfdb/> Because he experimented with a diversity of techniques, there is no typical Emsh cover. His painterly treatment for the August 1951 cover of ''Galaxy Science Fiction'' prefigures later work by [[Leo and Diane Dillon]].

== Film and video ==
[[File:Sunstonebook.jpg|thumb|A frame from Ed Emshwiller's video ''Sunstone'' (1979) was used on the front cover of this 1982 book published  by Addison-Wesley.]]

''Thanatopsis'' (1962), featuring brother Mac Emshwiller and sharing the title with [[William Cullen Bryant]]'s 1817 poem,<ref>[https://vimeo.com/1000959090 Thanatopsis (audio commentary) (Art & Trash Miniature 25) - Art & Trash on Vimeo]</ref> was his first five-minute film. In 1964, a [[Ford Foundation]] grant allowed Emshwiller to pursue his interest in film. Active in the New American Cinema movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, he created multimedia performance pieces and did cine-dance and experimental films, such as the 38-minute ''Relativity'' (1966).<ref>[https://vimeo.com/535227743 Scales of Being: Ed Emshwiller's Relativity - Art & Trash on Vimeo]</ref> He also was a cinematographer on documentaries, such as [[Emile de Antonio]]'s ''[[Painters Painting]]'' (1972), and feature films, such as ''Time of the Heathen'' (1962) and [[Adolfas Mekas]]' ''Hallelujah the Hills'' (1963).  Emshwiller's footage of [[Bob Dylan]] singing "[[Only a Pawn in Their Game]]" on July 6, 1963, at a Voters' Registration Rally in [[Greenwood, Mississippi]], was shot for Jack Willis' 1963 documentary ''[[Jack Willis|The Streets of Greenwood]]'' and appears in [[D. A. Pennebaker]]'s Dylan documentary, ''[[Dont Look Back]]'' (1967). For the [[United States Information Agency|US Information Agency]], he directed ''Faces of America'' (1965) and ''The 21st Century: The Shape of Films to Come'' (1968), a film that presents examples of films shown at Expo '67 that feature startling new visual effects and innovations. ''Filme with Three Dancers'' was made in 1970.

His films of the 1960s were mostly shot in 16mm color, and some of these included double exposures created simply by rewinding the cameras. He was one of the earliest video artists. With ''Scape-Mates'' (1972), he began his experiments in video, combining computer animation with live-action. In 1979, he produced ''Sunstone'', a groundbreaking three-minute 3-D computer-generated video made at the [[New York Institute of Technology]] with [[Alvy Ray Smith]].<ref>[http://www.vdb.org/artists/ed-emshwiller Video Data Bank]</ref> Now in the Museum of Modern Art's video collection, ''Sunstone'' was exhibited at SIGGRAPH 79, the 1981 Mill Valley Film Festival and other festivals. In 1979, it was shown on WNET's ''Video/Film Review'', and a ''Sunstone'' frame was used on the front cover of ''Fundamentals of Interactive Computer Graphics'', published in 1982 by Addison-Wesley.<ref>[http://www.alvyray.com/Art/ Alvy Ray Smith: Art].</ref>

== CalArts ==
After a period as artist-in-residence at the Television Laboratory WNET/13 (New York), where he worked on the effects for ''[[The Lathe of Heaven (film)|The Lathe of Heaven]]'' among other projects, he moved to California, where he was the founder of the CalArts Computer Animation Lab and served as provost and dean of the School of Film/Video at the [[California Institute of Arts]] from 1979 to 1990. He also served as provost from 1981 through 1986.<ref>[http://emsh.calarts.edu/facility/emsh.htm CalArts] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070619051030/http://emsh.calarts.edu/facility/emsh.htm |date=June 19, 2007 }}.</ref> In 1987, he created his electronic video opera ''Hunger'' for the 1987 Los Angeles Arts Festival, in partnership with composer [[Morton Subotnick]]. It was his last completed work, also presented in October 1989 at the [[Ars Electronica]] Festival in Linz, Austria.

== Influences ==
Among Enshwiller's neighbors in Levittown was [[Bill Griffith]], later acclaimed for his ''[[Zippy the Pinhead|Zippy]]'' syndicated comic strip. Griffith's parents sometimes posed as models for Emshwiller's illustrations. Griffith, who credited Emshwiller as an influence on his becoming an artist, was painted by Emshwiller into the front cover of ''Original Science Fiction'' (September 1957). Griffith commented, "He didn't point me to cartooning, but he pointed me into art in general and showed me a way of understanding how within one artist, there could exist this pop culture impulse and a fine art impulse."<ref>[http://www.zippythepinhead.com/pages/aabillgr.html ''The Comics Journal'': Bill Griffith interview].</ref>

== Archives and awards ==
[[File:Cover of World Without Men by Charles Eric Maine - Illustration by Ed Emshwiller - Ace Books 1958.jpg|thumb|Cover of ''World Without Men'' by [[Charles Eric Maine]] – illustration by Ed Emshwiller – [[Ace Books]], 1958]]

Emshwiller won one of the inaugural [[Hugo Awards]] in 1953, as the previous year's best "Cover Artist" (a tie with [[Hannes Bok]]). Cover artists and interior illustrators were not thereafter distinguished by the [[Hugo Award for Best Artist]] under various names; he won four more during the 1960s under the current "Professional Artist" distinction.<ref name=SFAwards/> On June 16, 2007, he became the third artist inducted by the [[EMP Museum#Science Fiction Hall of Fame|Science Fiction Hall of Fame]].<ref name=sfhof2007/>{{efn|name=sfhof |After inducting 36 fantasy and science fiction writers and editors from 1996 to 2004, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame dropped "fantasy" and made non-literary contributors eligible. [[Chesley Bonestell]] inaugurated the "Art" category in 2005 and [[Frank Kelly Freas]] followed in 2006.<ref name=sfhof-old/><!-- sources also comprise 2005 and 2006 refs in Bonestell and Freas biographies -->}} His paintings of aliens were displayed in the ''Alien Encounters'' exhibition of the Science Fiction Museum, which houses the hall of fame, at that time (September 10, 2006, to October 30, 2007).

His papers are archived at the California Institute of Arts.

== Personal life ==
{{unreferenced section | date= November 2012}}

Carol and Ed Emshwiller had three children—Eve Emshwiller, screenwriter Susan Emshwiller (''[[Pollock (film)|Pollock]]'') and actor-novelist Stoney [[Peter Emshwiller]] (''The Host'', ''Short Blade'').<ref>{{Cite news |title=Ed Emshwiller, 65; Made Experimental Movies and Videos |url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.comhttp//timesmachine.content-tagging.us-east-1-01.prd.dvsp.nyt.net/timesmachine/1990/08/02/885890.html?pageNumber=28 |access-date=2024-04-22 |work=The New York Times |language=en}}</ref> Family members, including his brother Maclellan Emshwiller, often served as models in his illustrations. Carol and Eve Emshwiller can be seen on a ''Galaxy Science Fiction'' cover (January 1957).

Emshwiller died of cancer on July 27, 1990, in [[Santa Clarita, California]], where he was cremated.

== Books ==
* Ortiz, Luis, Ed Emshwiller, Carol Emshwiller, and Alex Eisenstein. ''[http://public.eblib.com/EBLPublic/PublicView.do?ptiID=457295 Emshwiller: Infinity x Two: The Art & Life of Ed & Carol Emshwiller]''. New York: Nonstop Press, 2007. {{ISBN|978-1-933065-09-0}}.

==See also==
{{Portal bar |Film |Speculative fiction |Visual arts}} <!-- delete "bar" if/when there are enough ordinary See also -->

== Explanatory notes ==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist |25em |refs=
<ref name=isfdb>
{{ISFDB name |550}} (ISFDB). Retrieved April 10, 2013.</ref>

<!-- awards refs -->
<ref name=SFAwards>
[http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/NomArt11.html#1552 "Emshwiller, Ed"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121016201226/http://locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/NomArt11.html |date=October 16, 2012 }}. ''The Locus Index to SF Awards: Index of Art Nominees''. [[Locus Publications]]. Retrieved April 10, 2013.</ref>
<ref name=sfhof2007>
{{Cite press release |title=Science Fiction Hall of Fame to Induct Ed Emshwiller, Gene Roddenberry, Ridley Scott and Gene Wolfe |url=http://www.empsfm.org/press/index.asp?articleID=892 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071014112914/http://www.empsfm.org/press/index.asp?articleID=892 |archive-date=October 14, 2007 |publisher=Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame |date=March–May 2007 |access-date=March 19, 2013}}</ref>
<ref name=sfhof-old>
[http://www.midamericon.org/halloffame/ "Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130521070009/http://www.midamericon.org/halloffame/ |date=May 21, 2013 }}. Mid American Science Fiction and Fantasy Conventions, Inc. Retrieved April 10, 2013. This was the official website of the hall of fame to 2004.</ref>
}}

== External links ==
{{commons category}}
* [http://potrzebie.blogspot.com/2008/02/ed-emshwillers-thanatopsis-1962-512.html Emsh and Coye]
* {{Gutenberg author |id=25412}}
* [https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/emshwiller_ed Biography] at ''[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]]''
* {{ISFDB name |550}}
* {{sfhof |933 |Ed Emshwiller}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Emshwiller, Ed}}
[[Category:1925 births]]
[[Category:1990 deaths]]
[[Category:American experimental filmmakers]]
[[Category:20th-century American illustrators]]
[[Category:Artists from Lansing, Michigan]]
[[Category:Deaths from cancer in California]]
[[Category:Hugo Award–winning artists]]
[[Category:New York Institute of Technology faculty]]
[[Category:People from Levittown, New York]]
[[Category:People from Valencia, Santa Clarita, California]]
[[Category:American science fiction artists]]
[[Category:Science Fiction Hall of Fame inductees]]
[[Category:University of Michigan alumni]]