Rowena Morrill

Who is Rowena Morrill?

Rowena A. Morrill is an American artist, working in science-fiction and fantasy illustration. She is credited as being one of the first women artists to impact paperback cover illustration. Books of her own work have included The Fantastic Art of Rowena, Imagine, Imagination, and The Art of Rowena. She has also been included in many anthologies, such as, Tomorrow and Beyond and Infinite Worlds.

Morrill received a BA from the University of Delaware in 1971, following which she studied at the Tyler School of Arts. After being dropped from Tyler's program, she took a job at an advertising agency in New York, eventually showing her portfolio to Charles Volpe at Ace Books, who commissioned a romance cover from her. Her first cover for a horror novel was for Jane Parkhurst's Isobel in 1977. She continued to work in horror, producing cover art for H.P. Lovecraft collections before turning her attention to science fiction and fantasy covers.

Morrill's technique uses oil on illustration board, coating the paintings with a high-gloss glaze and thin coats of paint.

Her paintings have appeared on hundreds of book covers, on calendars, portfolios, trading cards and in magazines such as Playboy, Omni, Art Scene International, and Print Magazine.