Groundbreaking space artist Eddie Jones died October 18 in Liverpool of a stroke. He was 65.
Jones' death notice from the Science Fiction Writers of America, released Thursday, memorializes the artist as "the precursor to a generation of artists that helped define the look of early '70s SF illustration."
Despite the lack of a formal art background, Jones distinguished himself early as a fan artist, eventually making his first professional sales in 1958. One of his crowning achievements came in 1969, when he became art director for the short-lived but influential British monthly Visions of Tomorrow.
His richly colored depictions of interstellar vistas and rather industrial-looking space vessels are perhaps best known to U.S. readers from the James Blish "Star Trek" paperbacks published by Bantam in the 1970s.
Although the SFWA notice acknowledges that Jones became "somewhat reclusive in recent years," he played a very active role in SF fandom earlier in his life and was often the honored artist at conventions in the United States and in his native England.
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