Artist of Dune
John Schoenherr was the first to give Frank Herbert's novel visual form, in images that continue to shape how the epic novel is imagined
As anyone could have guessed after listening to the podcast I recently did with David Klion, I’ve been very eager to see new adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune. I did so yesterday and it lived up to all my hopes for it. David’s review in The New Republic mirrors my own reaction. David and I will be doing a podcast about the movie in the near future.
One of the most interesting comments on the movie came from Samuel R. Delany, himself a distinguished science fiction novelist (who, as it happened, rose to prominence as a science fiction novelist in the 1960s when Dune appeared). On Facebook, Delany remarked that the new adaptation, like earlier movie and TV versions, owed much to the work of John Schoenherr (1935-2010), who illustrated the initial serialization of Dune that ran in Analog magazine from 1963 to 1965.
Intrigued by Delany’s comments, I looked up Schoenherr’s Dune illustrations, eerie and even surprisingly psychedelic drawings (not uncommon in the 1960s but unexpected in the pages of Analog, which tended to prefer square-jawed engineering realism). Schoenherr’s drawings really helped solidify one of the strongest aspects of Herbert’s tale, the world-building of a believably alien future.
Delany was right that they’ve clearly shaped how almost everyone since then has imagined Dune. Herbert himself was a huge admirer of John Schoenherr, who went on to provide the cover for Dune and art for other Herbert works, including The Illustrated Dune (1978).
As the Dune adaptation now gets screened by millions, I want to raise a glass to Schoenherr as a major influence on the movie, perhaps second in importance only to Herbert’s words. Aside from his Dune illustrations, Schoenherr was a children’s book illustrator of note and perhaps even inspired the character design of Chewbacca in the Star Wars series.
More of Schoenherr’s work can be seen here. Below are some examples of of Schoenheer’s original Analog illustrations.
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