Rowena A. Morrill (September 14, 1944 – February 11, 2021), also credited as Rowena and Rowina Morril, was an American artist known for her science-fiction and fantasy illustration, and is credited as one of the first female artists to impact paperback cover illustration. Her notable artist monographs included The Fantastic Art of Rowena, Imagine (in France), Imagination (in Germany), and The Art of Rowena and her work has also been included in a variety of anthologies including Tomorrow and Beyond and Infinite Worlds.
Early life
Morrill was born September 14, 1944. From a family of musicians, Rowena initially studied music. She broke off those studies when as a teenager she married a soldier. At an Army wives' club she began classes in drawing.
Morrill received a BA from the University of Delaware in 1971 and then studied at the Tyler School of Arts To create these illustrations, Morrill used oil on illustration board, coating the image with a high-gloss glaze and thin coats of paint. As well, her paintings have appeared on hundreds of calendars, portfolios and in magazines such as Playboy, Heavy Metal, Omni, Art Scene International, and Print Magazine.
She was nominated for the Hugo Award four times in the Best Artist category. In 1983, her book The Fantastic Art of Rowena was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Nonfiction Book, and the Locus Award for Nonfiction/Reference. In 1984, she received the British Fantasy Award. She was named Guest of Honor at the 2017 World Fantasy Convention held in San Antonio, TX. She received a World Fantasy Life Achievement Award at the 2020 convention.
Following the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, art which appeared to be Morrill's original paintings King Dragon and Shadows Out of Hell were discovered hanging in one of his houses. According to Morrill, they were copies, as she had sold the originals to a Japanese collector.
The posthumous Paintings and Drawings of Rowena by Kim DeMulder was financed via a Kickstarter campaign, and has been nominated for a Locus Award for Best Illustrated and Art Book for 2023.
Plagiarism of Morrill's work
In 2003, a Flash animation slideshow titled "Family Art Corner" was released anonymously, alleging that a woman named Jan "Tamar" McRae had plagiarized the work of many artists, including Morrill, for reproduction in proselytization tracts printed by the Children of God cult. After the slideshow was released, both McRae and Karen Zerby, leader of the Children of God, acknowledged that McRae had copied the work of others, and McRae admitted wrongdoing.
Personal life
Morrill died in February 2021, at the age of 76, after a long illness.