For this occasion I’ve got to offer up this modified/chopped version of words from poet W. H. Auden: “Silence the pianos and with muffled drum. Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead. Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead. The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. For nothing now can ever come to any good.” Truly it is an epic moment for the artist who brought us decades of undeniably epic fantasy art, Frank Frazetta, is dead.

This man was a fantasy artist, completely and utterly. He painted and drew, illustrations that cannot be touched now or then or anytime. He worked on cover art for novels, comic books inside and out, movie posters, album covers, and every sort of painting small and large for the sale to the rich.

This past November, a cover art painting he did for Conan the Conquerer sold to an unnamed collector for $1million bucks. This was such big news that WIRED had a flip-out session about it. He did the utterly wild covers of Molly Hatchet albums, covers and insides of Vampirella, and yes, yes! the movie poster for Beastmaster. Plus a whole big batch, nest, mountain of other works.

I only mention the Beastmaster poster because it’s mentioned in the forever-classic graffiti film Style Wars. Frank Frazetta was an influence to shitloads of people, the readers of the fantasy novels he covered to the graffiti artists in this film. Dig it:

Now I’m not going to say much more about the man here, I’ll let his images do the rocking, but just so you know, he died on May 10 in Fort Myers, Fla, and he lived to be 82 years old. Also here I’d like to thank my main homie johnstonamerica for alerting me and the rest of thegiant crew to Frazetta’s passing.

Now devour his greatness!

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies ancient category.