Boris Vallejo is one of the most widely acclaimed fantasy and science fiction artists. His art has illustrated more than five hundred book covers and albums. He has worked for almost every major publishing house. Boris was born in Lima, Peru, where he majored in the National School of Fine Arts, before moving to the US. He creates worlds and dimensions.
ARTIST INTERVIEWS: Tell us about coming to the US from Peru and about your beginning the "Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes."
Boris Vallejo: I was admited to the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes at age fourteen, the youngest student to be admited to that art school at the time. I must have impressed them with my admission test as I was allowed to skip the first year and went right into the second year class. In retrospect I don't think that that is a good idea as I also skipped a lot of the basic studies that I now believe are necessary to get a solid drawing foundation. Of course later on I did those exercises on my own but I think it would have been better and easier to do them in the right order. In 1964 I came to the US. My original intention was to come for two years and then go back to Peru with the "American experience". Needless to say, what I found surpassed my expectations and I decided to stay here.
"I may get inspired by a single pose of a model.
I then put the figure on the board and build a
scene, that is to say a story around it.
The ideas are always there, waiting to come out."
AI: Your art is fantastic. How do you begin to create a painting?
