THE ART OF EARLE K. BERGEY
Illustration|Illustration No. 76
Wouldn't it be great in the future if all pulp art fans could enjoy interplanetary travel with a devoted consort who looked like that pretty girl in high school biology class?
David Saunders
THE ART OF EARLE K. BERGEY

You know, the one who would modestly blush whenever the teacher mentioned how hormones were transforming our bodies? Well, according to Earle Bergey, in her future maturity she will have grown blasé about lounging around the space capsule casually dressed in a pair of silky harem pants and a shiny brass brassiere. Who could blame any pulp fan for wanting to see that dream come true! So sure enough, all of these surviving paintings were snapped up for a few hundred dollars way back in the 1970s by fan-boys, who held onto them for as long as they could, until the next generation of collectors tempted them with offers of a few thousand dollars. Now, in the 21st century, these sexy sci-fi paintings are back on the market and selling for over $50,000. As prices for pulp art soars higher and higher, most fans have had to grapple with the harsh realization that the time has long since come and gone for owning original cover art. Collecting pulp art is now the sport of kings, who thrill at breaking record prices in jousting matches at auction houses. One of the strangest things about this trend is that the super wealthy investors are given almost no information on the artwork's provenance, its publication history, or the life story of the artist. This is happening because the gold-rush has outpaced the scholarship of art historians. One of the most important things we do know is that 97% of all original pulp art has been destroyed by the corrosive effects of passing time and changing tastes in fashion. It now seems likely that the entire supply of these rare cover paintings are on track to become the investment property of only the top one-percent of our "classless" society. So there's no better time than as-soon-as-possible to figure out, "Who was this guy Earle Bergey?"

This story is from the Illustration No. 76 edition of Illustration.

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This story is from the Illustration No. 76 edition of Illustration.

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