(1926-2009) US illustrator. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago and the American Academy of Arts before graduating from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. His commercial career began as an associate art director for Ziff-Davis in 1952, and he became art director for Quinn Publishing, publisher of If, in 1953. From 1954 he freelanced, though most of his magazine work was for those two companies; he painted 49 covers for Amazing and 32 for Fantastic, mostly in the 1950s, and many book covers (often unsigned) for Ace Books in the 1950s and 1960s – notably the Ace Doubles – and for many other book publishers, including Avon and Dell. His work sometimes looks hurried, but he was proficient at menacing Robots and his characteristic needle-nosed Spaceships. Like many sf illustrators of the period, Valigursky found other markets that paid better, and moved into advertising, general-fiction magazines like Collier's, and nonfiction magazines such as Popular Mechanics, for which he produced several dozen covers in the 1970s and 1980s. His depictions of aviation and aerospace subjects have featured in exhibits at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC and the Royal Air Force Museum in London. [JG/PN/DRL]
Edward I Valigursky
born New Kensington, Pennsylvania: 16 October 1926
died Cape Coral, Florida: 7 September 2009
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