Carl Lundgren (born July 12, 1947) is an American

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

and

illustrator An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicate ...

, primarily known for his 1960s-era rock posters and

fantasy art Fantastic art is a broad and loosely defined art genre. It is not restricted to a specific school of artists, geographical location or historical period. It can be characterised by subject matter—which portrays non-realistic, mystical, mythi ...

Career

Born on July 12, 1947, in

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

, Lundgren had an early interest in becoming a fantasy artist and illustrator like

Frank Frazetta Frank Frazetta (born Frank Frazzetta ; February 9, 1928 – May 10, 2010) was an American artist known for themes of Fantasy art, fantasy and science fiction, noted for comic books, mass market paperback, paperback book covers, paintings, p ...

, his idol. At the age of 18, he was co-chairman of the first multimedia

science fiction convention Science fiction conventions are gatherings of fans of the speculative fiction subgenre, science fiction. Historically, science fiction conventions had focused primarily on literature, but the purview of many extends to such other avenues of ex ...

, The Detroit Triple Fan Fair, featuring

comics a Media (communication), medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of Panel (comics), panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, Glo ...

, movies and

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

. He studied with the Famous Artists School correspondence course, for formal training. In 1967 Lundgren met rock poster artist Gary Grimshaw, who was illustrating posters for a Detroit rock venue, run by

Russ Gibb Russel James Gibb (June 15, 1931 – April 30, 2019) was an American rock concert promoter, school teacher and disc jockey from Dearborn, Michigan, best known for his role in the "Paul is dead" phenomenon, a story he broke on radio station WNIC, WK ...

, called the

Grande Ballroom The Grande Ballroom ( ') is a historic live music venue located at 8952 Grand River Avenue in the Petosky-Otsego neighborhood of Detroit, Michigan. The building was designed by Detroit engineer and architect Charles N. Agree in 1928 and original ...

. Grimshaw offered him a job, and Lundgren went on to create poster art for seminal bands such as

The Who The Who are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1964. Their classic lineup (1964–1978) consisted of lead vocalist Roger Daltrey, guitarist Pete Townshend, bassist John Entwistle and drummer Keith Moon. Considered one of th ...

Jefferson Airplane Jefferson Airplane was an American Rock music, rock band formed in San Francisco, California, in 1965. One of the pioneering bands of psychedelic rock, the group defined the San Francisco Sound and was the first from the San Francisco Bay Area, ...

and

Pink Floyd Pink Floyd are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1965. Gaining an early following as one of the first British psychedelic music, psychedelic groups, they were distinguished by their extended compositions, sonic experiments ...

. In 1974 Lundgren moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

and turned to science fiction and fantasy illustration for a living, painting nearly 300 book covers. During this time, Lundgren became a co-founder of the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists (ASFA) and was nominated for a

Hugo Award The Hugo Award is an annual literary award for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year, given at the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) and chosen by its members. The award is administered by th ...

for his illustration work. Lundgren quit working for the publishing industry in 1987, choosing to instead to focus on fine art. In 1993 he wrote and published an autobiography called ''Carl Lundgren, Great Artist''. In 2015 Hermes Press published a book by Lundgren on his posters titled ''The Psychedelic Rock Art of Carl Lundgren''. On August 10, 2023, Lundgren's wife Michele was arraigned in Michigan District Court 54-A for her part as an alleged fake elector for Donald Trump in the 2020 election.

Bibliography

* '' Nirwana'' (1981) (Compiled by E. L. de Marigny, Jaime Martijn, and Annemarie Kindt, Illustrated by Alicia Austin)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lundgren, Carl 1947 births American illustrators American poster artists Artists from Detroit American fantasy artists Living people American role-playing game artists