Bruce Minney (October 2, 1928 — August 5, 2013) was an American artist who worked in a variety of media. He was a commercial illustrator for over 40 years producing paintings for

men’s adventure Men's adventure is a literary genre, genre of magazine that was published in the United States from the 1940s until the early 1970s. Catering to a male audience, these magazines featured pin-up girls and lurid tales of adventure that typically fea ...

magazines, paperbacks, and storyboards. Later he moved to ceramics and won numerous awards for his efforts. His most recent work included collages and paintings.

Early life and career

As a child, Minney loved to draw and after graduating from Oakland High in 1946, he was accepted by the

California School of Arts and Crafts California College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in Berkeley, California in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in Oakland, California in 1922. In 1996 it opened a second campus in San ...

. After graduation, he married his high school sweetheart, Doris Schulz, and worked as a fireman in nearby

Orinda Orinda is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city's population as of the 2020 census is estimated at 19,514 residents. History Orinda is located within four Mexican land grants: Rancho Laguna de los Palos Colorados, ...

as he tried to launch his art career. In 1955, he packed his wife, his four-year-old daughter Carole, and all their belongings into a 1950

Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west. Plymout ...

and drove cross country to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

. Doris got a job in advertising with Doyle, Dane, Bernbach, while Bruce stayed home with his daughter and created samples. Eventually, he hooked up with Eddie Balcourt, a well-known artist's representative, and began his career as a professional illustrator. Minney did many credited and uncredited illustrations for ''

Stag Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reind ...

'', '' For Men Only'', ''Male'', ''True Action'', ''Man’s World'' and many other publications of

Magazine Management Magazine Management Co., Inc. was an American publishing company lasting from at least 1947 to the early 1970s, known for men's-adventure magazines, risque men's magazines, humor magazine, humor, Romance novel, romance, puzzle, celebrity/film and ...

. He also did all the interior illustrations for the short-lived '' Space Science Fiction Magazine''. As the 1960s wore on and U.S. involvement in Vietnam increased and magazines like '' Penthouse'' became more explicit, the readership of the men’s adventure magazines dropped and jobs were harder to come by. One of the last men’s adventure magazine illustration Bruce did was for '' National Lampoon'' in November 1970. This illustration is a brutal, acerbic parody in the men’s adventure style set in Vietnam. Minney was the featured artist in ''Illustration'' magazine #40. His work was also featured in the Season 5 episode "Going Hollywood" of the History Channel series ''

American Pickers ''American Pickers'' is an American reality television series that premiered on January 18, 2010 on History, produced by A&E Television Networks in collaboration with Cineflix Media. In the series, the hosts travel across America in search of r ...

'', which aired on August 5, 2013.

Paperbacks

From 1969 to 1986, Minney created over 400 paperback illustrations in oils and acrylic for

Grosset & Dunlap Grosset & Dunlap is a New York City-based publishing house founded in 1898. The company was purchased by G. P. Putnam's Sons in 1982 and today is part of Penguin Random House through its subsidiary Penguin Group. Today, through the Penguin ...

Avon Avon may refer to: * River Avon (disambiguation), several rivers Organisations *Avon Buses, a bus operating company in Wirral, England *Avon Coachworks, a car body builder established in 1919 at Warwick, England, relaunched in 1922, following ...

, Fawcett,

Harlequin Harlequin (; it, Arlecchino ; lmo, Arlechin, Bergamasque pronunciation ) is the best-known of the '' zanni'' or comic servant characters from the Italian ''commedia dell'arte'', associated with the city of Bergamo. The role is traditionall ...

Ace An ace is a playing card, die or domino with a single pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the ca ...

Pinnacle A pinnacle is an architectural element originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or small turret, but afterwards used on parapets at the corners of towers and in many other situations. The pinnacle looks like a small spire. It was mainl ...

, Manor Books, and

Pyramid A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrila ...

. Among the titles he illustrated were: the

Lone Ranger The Lone Ranger is a fictional masked former Texas Ranger who fought outlaws in the American Old West with his Native American friend Tonto. The character has been called an enduring icon of American culture. He first appeared in 1933 in ...

series

Horatio Hornblower Horatio Hornblower is a fictional officer in the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, the protagonist of a series of novels and stories by C. S. Forester. He later became the subject of films, radio and television programmes, a ...

series, and Windhaven De Jourlet, Marie. Return To Windhaven, Pinnacle Books () series.

Ceramics

In the 1990s and into the 2000s, Minney worked in ceramics and exhibited his works at many arts and crafts shows in California and Florida, winning numerous awards.

References

External links

"Oh, Those Pulpy Days of 'Weasels Ripped My Flesh'"
from ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''
"Charles Copeland"
reprinted from ''Illustration Magazine'' #33

{{DEFAULTSORT:Minney, Bruce 1928 births 2013 deaths Artists from Oakland, California California College of the Arts alumni Place of birth missing Place of death missing People from Orinda, California American magazine illustrators