Sztuka Science Fiction Art
(1990 - Wydawnictwa ALFA/Agentur Luserke)

'Sztuka' could be said to mean 'art' in Polish. This book was created in Poland. Not having much text at all, having chapter titles in both Polish & English was apparently no problem (they are: Modern American Artists, European Artists, and 1950s And Before). (Apparently, if you are a Brit, you count as an American). This book, only 72 pages, got itself up amid the highest-scoring of the sci-fi art collections and I have to say that I like how it goes about its business of displaying as much art as possible without crowding in additional text with introductions, biographies, or, say, analysis of the genre. Of course, captions got thrown out the window too - no info on the art but who painted it (not even titles...). I especially liked that the compilers displayed many longer works, but always held them each unsplit on their single pages. Ultimately, you simply have in your hands 47 pages that each efficiently feature large-reproductions and then another 15 that pull together multiple images. There's just one page at the end that lists the artists they chose to spotlight. And every artist got at least one 'well-presented' piece to themselves - namely: Stefan Blaser (3), Michael Böhme (6), Douglas Chaffee (2), Morris Scott Dollens, Bob Eggleton (2), Virgil Finlay, Alan Gutierrez (4), David Hardy (2)**, Klaus Holizka, Ken Kelly (2)**, P.S. Lonati (2), Pete Lyon, Rodney Matthews (5), Keith Page, Swen Papenbrock (2), Marco Patrito (3), Gerard Quinn, Ed Valigursky (2), H.R. VanDongen (2), Kevin Ward (4), James Warhola (4), and Brian Waugh (3). Not the easiest book to find here in the United States, but with some patience a copy can still be had at a reasonable price.