Wendell Minor: Art for the Written Word: Twenty-Five Years of Book Cover Art

I have been a fan of Wendell Minor's art for many years without knowing it. He is probably the most prolific book cover artist in America. For 25 years he has been illustrating covers for books, several of which I have in my library or have noticed on the bookshelves for their covers alone. He is soft-spoken and literate, and is unusual in that he reads the books beforehand to get the best focus on how to paint the cover. The book begins with interviews with Minor and important people in his professional life, and then the main part of the book is a selection of the covers themselves, along with notes written by the authors and what the illustrations meant to their books. Many of these covers make me want to read the book, not knowing show more anything else about them - which is kind of their purpose, I guess. My only quibble is that most of the art shown does not show the typography, which Minor has made clear is designed by him to be an integral part of the cover. show less

Page after page of Minor's sincere thoughts in recounting his experience with creating these covers makes this book very personal. The beautiful format of this book make a winner of it most surely. Getting to share his philosophy as he was creating all this fine work was so touching and ever so informative. The format is outstanding.