Frank Frazetta, Conan the Berserker, Cover Painting Original Art (Lancer/Ace, 1967)....

Description

Frank Frazetta, Conan the Berserker, Cover Painting Original Art (Lancer/Ace, 1967). This jaw-dropping masterpiece immediately leaps out as one of the greatest from the famed series of Conan paperback covers Frank Frazetta painted during an incredible 1960s run -- a body of work that did nothing less than completely reinvent fantasy illustration while exemplifying the massive impact popular art could generate.

Published as Conan the Conqueror in 1967, this intricately detailed and action-packed image stands as the best of the series for many collectors, and the painting is indisputably one of the small handful of Frazetta's most desirable from the upper echelon of his greatest hits. Combining Frazetta's very best elements of fantasy iconography and classic artistry, Conan has never appeared more powerfully heroic --even super heroic -- than in this unforgettable scene!

In addition to being one of the most impressive full-figure depictions of Conan that Frazetta ever rendered, the bold composition is one of the artist's most iconic, immediately recognizable, and memorable. Conan absolutely dominates the detailed battlefield, and Frazetta masterfully employs red highlights that swirl throughout, culminating in his bloody sword, victoriously raised, seemingly slicing through the entire atmospheric sky and serving as the dramatic punctuation of the composition. The figure of Conan is as fascinating and multi-layered as any the artist ever painted, with his pose immediately making clear Frazetta's lifelong fascination with Italian Renaissance imagery, simultaneously embodying pure physical domination while also calling to mind a sacrificial crucifixion -- perhaps the greatest example of Frazetta's virtuosity at interpretive open-endedness, a quality that has spurred the continued fascination his art holds for generations of fans. The painting is a compositional tour de force, and even Conan's horse is a study in the unique dynamism Frazetta single-handedly invented, formally counterbalancing the forward thrust of Conan while narratively scattering hordes of menacing warriors (and perhaps an inspiration to another of the artist's indisputably greatest images, 1973's Death Dealer).

The Conan series is truly Frazetta at his peak and the books were immediately a huge hit due to their powerful covers, which serve as the lightning bolt of an opening -- and in our minds most important and revolutionary -- salvo for the artist. Frazetta's interpretations indelibly personified Robert E. Howard's now classic tales, defining the character and serving as the template for the Conan resurgence, which led to the Marvel comic book series and ultimately to the 1982 feature film, Conan the Barbarian. One could even make the case that the entire career of onscreen Conan Arnold Schwarzenegger stems from Frazetta's covers, since the concept -- and the casting criteria -- of the movie was directly inspired by the series. It's fun to speculate whether Schwarzenegger would have still become the #1 box office movie star in the world, and later, the governor of California, absent Frazetta's uber-iconic Conan paintings. As such, their pop cultural impact cannot be overstated.

In the subsequent decades this image has been reproduced on innumerable T-shirts, prints, posters -- and an amazing Gibson guitar -- making the appeal truly worldwide. And the painting's provenance is equally impressive, coming directly from one of the greatest collectors of all things horror and fantasy, Kirk Hammett, Metallica's lead guitarist. It was published in the invaluable volume devoted to Hammett's collection, Too Much Horror Business (Abrams, 2012), and exhibited at the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA, in It's Alive! Classic Horror and Sci-Fi Art from the Kirk Hammett Collection, from August 12-November 26, 2017.

Berserker was purchased by Hammett directly from the artist in November 2009 for $1,000,000, an unheard-of price at the time, and has never since been offered on the market. When Hammett acquired it, Frazetta had sold virtually none of his major paintings, and Hammett had his pick of treasures -- choosing Berserker above them all. To put that staggering price in perspective, soon after the artist's passing in 2010, Frazetta's original pen-and-ink comic book cover for Weird Science-Fantasy #29 -- widely considered to be the greatest comic book cover of all time -- sold for just $380,000, which itself was far more than any comic art had sold for previously. That's all to make clear what a premium both Frazetta and Hammett placed on this showpiece.

Heritage has been honored to work directly with the Frazetta family as well as scores of top collectors over many years, continuing to reset record after record for the artist's work, culminating in our September sale of another great Conan painting, Man Ape, for the latest record price of $13,500,000 -- we couldn't be more excited to now offer Berserker, truly an all-time masterpiece.

The painting is oil on canvas, measuring 15.25" x 19.25", and framed to a full 23.5" x 27.5". The painting displays beautifully and is in overall excellent condition with only minor wear, including light edge wear with some very minor losses, a few scattered brown pin dots, a few other pin dots of loss, and a small irregularity in the varnish, primarily visible under UV examination. Additional photos and full condition report available upon request. For details or to inquire about in-person viewing, please contact Joe Maddalena, JMaddalena@HA.com or Todd Hignite, ToddH@HA.com. From the Kirk Hammett Collection.

More Information: **Queens & Conquerors: The Art of Power**
Frank Frazetta is unquestionably the most significant illustrator of the second half of the 20th century -- a Norman Rockwell of the id whose surreal, menacing, and yet hauntingly beautiful visions of violence and chaos stand among the most successful commercial artworks ever created. Frazetta's talent was apparent from his earliest work, but it was when he was given the ability to work primarily from his own imagination that the true force of his artistry emerged. This turning point came with his series of paintings for the Lancer reissues of Robert E. Howard's Conan series. These pieces have become touchstones for fantasy art for generations, permanently altering Howard's classic pulp hero in the cultural imagination and standing as proof of the power of illustration itself.

Frazetta approached his Conan commissions by completely disregarding Howard's descriptions of the character. In fact, he often claimed to have never even read the original stories. Before Frazetta, Conan was a classic pulp hero inhabiting a universe of swords and sorcery. In Frazetta's hands, he became an avatar of life and death itself. The vitality of these paintings is undeniable, embodying what Frazetta described as the raw, animalistic power he associated with the character. These works celebrate form, physicality, and the seductive power of violence. Yet their muted palettes and complex compositions suggest that the power given by violence only lasts as long as the battle itself.

Frazetta's cover for Conan the Conquerer, also known as Berserker, is perhaps the most powerful exploration of that truth: no matter how ferociously unstoppable Conan may be, his battle will never resolve in triumph.

In the image, Conan looms at the top of a pyramidal composition -- one of Frazetta's favored geometries -- formidably stable despite the dizzying action. His face and body are subtly illuminated within the eerily desaturated surroundings, and his blood-tipped sword appears to be calling the lightning to his command as an infinite horde surrounds him. Frazetta's work from this period is often compared to Eugene Delacroix for its masterful use of shadows and angles, but the face of Conan here most clearly evokes Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son. In this case, the son is Howard's entire Hyborian universe.

Berserker does not gain its significance through such comparisons, however. Its significance needs no defense. Illustration art itself does not require validation through conversation with traditional fine art to possess merit, value, or power. Yet, as Frazetta is increasingly recognized as one of the leading American artists of the 20th century, it presents a long overdue opportunity for more nuanced thinking about illustration within the broader canon. Goya's Greek mythology becomes Frazetta's pulp fiction -- source texts to explore, explode, and interpret so that these tales endure for new generations.

Frazetta's Conan has become the definitive Conan. This was evident by John Buscema's mid-1970s run on the Conan the Barbarian comic, but it became irreversible with the 1982 film adaptation Conan the Barbarian. So inspired was director John Millius by Frazetta's work that he created entire tableaus based upon paintings like Egyptian Queen and modeled Arnold Schwarzeneggar after Frazetta's Conan.

With such outsized impact, it's hard to believe how spontaneously these works were created. Legendarily, Frazetta worked out many of his sophisticated oil paintings with very few preparatory sketches, and created Berserker in a single night. Much like Conan's sword drawing power from lightning, Frazetta himself channeled a power universal, unlimited, and unrestrained with his brush. The masterpieces of illustration he created when given full agency remain inspirational today -- symbols of the complex relationship between violence and vitality, and between constraint and creativity.


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