I'd never heard of French illustrator
René Brantonne until happening upon a copy of 'Brantonne Illustrateur', a book of his artwork published in 1983, four years after his death.
I could see that his work was dynamic and striking, but there was not too much about the man I personally could piece together from a book written in French.
Fortunately there's a good amount about him online, where I could discover a bit more about Brantonne and his career that spanned roughly fifty years.
He began as a commercial artist in the late 1920's and soon moved into poster work for major film studios during the '30's.
His work in French Comics (Bande Dessinée, or BD) and fiction magazines began in the 40's, after WWII.
That would lead him into the field of science-fiction illustration, for which he is best remembered and in which he would have his greatest influence.
Some links, with better details and plenty of images...
- Be SURE to check out the beautiful and informative 'Homage to René Brantonne' at
Cool French Comics.
- Another site in English, Muttpop has a small 'Old School Sci Fi' Brantonne gallery, with links.
- A French gallery page of Brantonne 'thriller' novel covers, page 1 and page 2.
- A huge French bibliography of Brantonne Sci-Fi book covers at nooSFere.
- Another large Sci-Fi gallery/bibliography, specifically for the French Fleuve Noir 'Anticipation' series of pulp paperbacks.
Click on the highlighted book titles to see cover enlargements and details. The majority of the artwork appears to be Brantonne...
- A curious gallery of some of Brantonne's 'cheesecake' covers to the 'historical erotic' novels of Bertrand de Gélannes.
⬅ This foreboding image refers to the the Seveso disaster of 1976, an industrial accident at a chemical plant in northern Italy that had catastrophic effects on neighboring communities.
I'd never heard of French illustrator 
