It’s been awhile since The Midnight Room took a trip to the
used paperback bookstore. This week I’d like to introduce readers to the terrifying
Gothic imagery of George Ziel (1914-1982). Whereas artists like Harry Bennett
and Lou Marchetti emphasized the romantic elements in their Gothic Romance
paintings, George Ziel emphasized the Gothic. His heroines wear expressions of palpable
fear, eyes often wide with terror. If that isn’t enough, he frequently
incorporates other Gothic and occult elements including black cats, skulls,
candles, and swarms of black bats that skitter across the painting.
Original painting for Paperback Library for the cover of Shorecliff by Marilyn Ross
Ziel’s images of death and fear are so striking that he
employed virtually the same style for his series of thirty-one cover paintings
for Jove’s paperback reprints of New Zealand mystery novelist Ngaio
Marsh, as well as covers for the George Simenon reprints for Pocket Books.
Gothic Romance collectors, however, are more familiar with
his work for Paperback Library where he produced outstanding covers for titles
by such prolific writers as Christine Randell, Dorothy Daniels, and Marilyn
Ross, often delivering three to four paintings a month. In an era when writers
could not produce original Gothic Romance novels fast enough, publishers such
as Paperback Library often reprinted older mysteries and some classic works,
sometimes with new titles, always with an eye toward attracting the readers who
sought these books ravenously, month after month, for nearly two decades.
Archivist Lynn Munroe presents an extensive portrait of
Ziel’s life and work at Lynn Munroe Books wherein he states: “Ziel appeared to
have tapped into our darkest fears and nightmares, and presented them on vivid
paperback covers. Some of them were romances, some were mysteries; all of them
were haunting. The average reader, with no knowledge of Ziel’s past, could only
wonder. To those who knew his story, the signposts were all clearly marked.
Like all great artists, George Ziel drew on his own experiences and memories,
his own visions and nightmares, to infuse the horrifying world of his best
cover art. Although he rarely signed his name or received a printed artist
credit, he nonetheless became a true modern master of horror.”
The story of Ziel’s past is as horrifying as any of his
covers. He was born Jerzy Zielezinsky in Poland
in 1914 where, as a youth he was relegated to the Warsaw Ghetto before
ultimately being shipped off to Dachau .
As “an artist; he felt a powerful need to create art that
the restrictions at Dachau
could not destroy. Paper and pencils were forbidden, so Jerzy used to sketch on
pieces of scrap paper using bits of charcoal. He made sketches of his fellow
prisoners and of life in the camps. When Dachau was liberated, Jerzy was taken to a
hospital. During his convalescence there, he turned his rough sketches into
drawings and created new images from the memories burned into his mind.”
Is it any wonder then that Ziel’s covers for Gothic Romance
paperbacks are infused with more dark imagery than the majority of his
contemporaries?
For more book cover goodness, visit the George Ziel checklist at Munroe’s website. I’d also like to personally thank Munroe for
allowing me to use material from his exhaustive overview of Ziel’s life and
work.
