05 April 2013

SF Pulp Covers of Stephen Lawrence

1949

June 1950
February 1950
July 1953

October 1949


September 1950
November 1952

He also did some intricate line art for the interiors of such magazines...

Famous Fantastic Mysteries Magazine, Feb. 1946





4 comments:

  1. I greatly admired Lawrence's work in my pulp collecting days. He was one of the better pulp cover painters. So what was his real name? I've seen others identify him as Lawrence Sterne Stevens.

    BTW, the Fantastic Novels cover is by Finlay; it's signed.

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    1. eek! you are right. My face is red! I was looking for Finlay stuff when I stumbled across Lawrence's BW pages, which led to his covers and doing a post. Must have gotten directories mixed up. THANKS!

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    2. LAWRENCE (STERNE STEVENS)

      (1884-1960)

      Lawrence Sterne Stevens was born December 4, 1884 in Pontiac, Michigan. His father was the Reverend Lawrence Sterne Stevens, M.A., Rector of the Zion Protestant Episcopal Church, a passionate visionary leader, whose portrait still hangs in the church. The father was sixty-two at the time of his birth. The mother, Kate, was thirty-eight, and had previously given birth to six children. Lawrence Sterne Stevens was the youngest.

      By 1900 he and his parents lived in Pontiac at 147 West Pike Street, along with his brother Willard's wife and a three-year-old daughter.

      From 1925 to 1937 Lawrence Stevens worked as a designer and illustrator for the General Moters Company in Brussels and Antwerp.

      In 1939 the German army invaded Poland and war was declared. As an ex-patriot American he moved his family in 1940 to New York City. They lived at 116 Waverly Place in Greenwich Village.

      In 1941 he began his career as a freelance illustrator in NYC. Lawrence Sterne Stevens and his father the Reverend had the exact same name, so to protect his father's good name,the artist preferred to publish illustrations under a pseudonym. He signed his work with only his first name, "Lawrence."

      In April 25, 1942 he reported for his draft registration and was recorded to have brown eyes, gray hair, and a light complexion.

      In 1943 he drew interior story illustrations for Argosy. Remarkably, at that same time his son, Peter Stevens, age twenty-three, was also selling freelance cover paintings to that same magazine.

      1948 to 1953 he painted covers for Amazing, A. Merrit's Fantasy Magazine, Famous Fantastic Mysteries, and Fantastic Novels.

      In 1950 at age 66 he and Myvanwy moved out of their Greenwich Village apartment and moved to a South Norwalk, Connecticut, to live with his son's family.

      In 1953 at age sixty-nine he retired from professional illustration. That same year the entire family moved to a farm in Lewisboro, NY, which is only ten miles north of Norwalk, CT.

      Lawrence Stevens died at age seventy-six at the Norwalk Hospital in 1960.

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  2. Thanks for the bio of Stevens. What a surprise to discover he was Peter Stevens' father. I'd seen Peter's work in 1950s women's magazines.

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