is a feature documentary focused on
one of the prime visionaries of science
fiction and fantasy illustration
-- Paul Lehr
It is not merely a celebration of Paul’s
huge body of influential work, but an
in-depth exploration into the labyrinth
of the creative mind... and the myriad
conflicts and sacrifices to achieve
an artistic vision
"Every artist should follow their own star."
- Paul Lehr
Among the very few artists who are able to evoke the science fiction genre without depicting the specific scenes from the books they illustrate, Lehr stands out for dominating the science fiction covers in the mid-1960s into the 1970s. He attended the Pratt Institute (NY) from 1953-1956, earning a certificate in illustration. There, he studied with Philip Guston, Richard Lindner, Calvin Albert and most importantly, Stanley Meltzoff in Red Bank, New Jersey.
While Lehr's earliest published works show Meltzoff's influence, with whom he briefly shared a studio, Lehr soon developed his own unique voice and palette. His imagery, although representational, shared abstract and surrealist affinities with the art of Richard Powers, whose earlier success paved the way for experimentation in illustrative art. Lehr followed his own dictum with original and brilliantly colored "futurescapes". These often featured enormous egg-like or spherical objects, set against grand but barren future landscapes, with the human figures, if any, scaled as so to appear dwarfed by their surroundings. His paintings were "atmospheric... built around the use of saturated colors in a multiplicity of harmonies... highly evocative of the central themes of science fiction," according to Vincent Di Fate, who chose Lehr's work for the jacket cover of his important visual survey of science fiction art, Infinite Worlds (1997).
Lehr worked in a variety of media, including oils, acrylics (sometimes in combination with oil), and gouache, often on Masonite or wood panel, and signed every work with a scripted "Lehr". In June 1998, he wrote: "I try to take advantage of intuition and accidents that occur on the way to completion of a work of art. I like to be mentally free and let the subconscious enter into the creative process. Like many artists, my consciousness has been dominated by the urge to create. It has been this way since the beginning..."
Frank, Jane. A Biographical Dictionary: Science Fiction and Fantasy Century.
Published by McFarland & Company, Inc.,
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London, 2009. p. 316-7.
“[Paul] paints elaborately, detailed images of events and they could be graphical. They could be three dimensional. They can be suggestions of a strange kind of dismembered reality, but they're startling for all of those reasons.”
-- Syd Mead
“His uniquely paranoid attitude toward technology is what gives his work its’ distinctive surrealistic flavor. Often his machines are endowed with everwatchful eyes, gnashing insectile mandibles, or are depicted grinding cities into dust.”
-- Vincent di Fate
“Lehr may have dominated science fiction covers in the mid-sixties and into the seventies, but in his artistry he was more like a jazz musician.”
-- Jane Frank
“I don't really care about the structured intellectual approach to a thing. I'm an emotional person and I just do it as it moves me. Then perhaps that comes through, I don't know. I hope so...”
“...because if it does, I'd be really happy.”
-- Paul Lehr
“Paul did a huge number (of covers), I would say, in the thousands. And you cannot do that much work without having an influence.” -- Vincent di Fate
“It's taken over
the culture. I think
science fiction
now dominates
Hollywood.
I mean, jeez, it's
just dominated.
It's remarkable.”
-- John Dechancie
(Movie posters by Lehr)
“Like many artists I produced work that I found to be very bad, and at the times I've destroyed some. Perhaps some of the work that I've destroyed was better than that which survived. I have nightmares about that sometimes.”
-- Paul Lehr
“We're very sensitive people so yeah, when someone goes, "I don't know about that." You kind of go, "Oh, okay." And then you go burn all your work. Yeah. Sure. That makes total sense to me.”
-- Rob Ruppel
“I've always thought it strange the way some of us make all these cumbersome, heavy things for other people to move around and wonder what to do with it after we're gone. It must be a desperate effort to avoid being ignored.”
-- Paul Lehr
“He'd just show you some of his sculptures and you're looking going, wow. You thought the paintings were good? Oh my God!”
-- Bob Eggleton
“The guilt involved in having a family and trying to be a painter is almost overwhelming.”
-- Judy Martin
“My father was always working every day. I don't remember one day that he did not go out to the studio in the morning and stay there until dinner time. That was his schedule. Weekends, holidays, unless we went somewhere, which was rare, very rare actually. That was his routine. He went out every single day.”
-- Diana Lehr