The Borisography: B

The painting is undated.

My guess that it was produced for a magazine illustration has proved to be wrong. The current owners, upon contacting Boris for more information, were advised that it was a private piece painted as a birthday present for his mother. I do not know whether she had any input regarding the subject but it is certainly a delightful painting.

See the 2006 trading card page for details of all the paintings by Boris, and Julie, for this client.

At left is detail of the vase in the lower left corner of the painting.

The painting is not dated but was probably painted in 1978.

The figure (statue?) in the background is an allusion to her former alter ego of Batgirl. Shortly after reliquishing that role she was shot by The Joker resulting in the spinal injury which confined her to a wheelchair. Thereafter she became the computer/technical expert Oracle who anonymously used her skills to aid law enforcement. As is often the case in comics, death and permanent injury are mere inconveniences so it is no surprise that her full mobility was restored and she once more became Batgirl after a hiatus of four years.

I have no information as to why this was painted.

One glaring omission is that in the film the character Pygar (extreme right,) played by John Philip Law, is an angel with very big wings. Boris had been looking forward to painting all those feathers so was quite disappointed when the client stipulated that he be painted sans wings!

The painting is signed but undated.

The first known title for this piece was The Barbarian and the Sorcerers but more recently the last word has become Sorceress (possibly due to a typing error?)

Probably painted in 1975.

Althought the sketch is dated 1985, the painting based on it was actually completed in 1984! (See the two entries below for more information.) I believe that this is one of a number of undated sketches that, for whatever reason, were retrospectively dated 1985. Clearly, in this case (and others which are separately identified,) the date is wrong.

This is the original version of the painting based on the preliminary artwork (see above.) It was used for the initial film advertising and I have also seen it used for more recent video/DVD releases of the film. It was subsequently overpainted and redated 1985: see the next painting below.

This piece is listed by the old Imaginistix website as being by Julie Bell and images from there, and the CD, do indeed bear her signature but the game's box clearly proclaims that the artwork was by Boris, it carries his signature thereon and it advertises the optional poster "… By Boris Vallejo." Since the box and poster versions are signed in different places I surmise that the original artwork is probably unsigned. I had noticed that other artwork featured on the website also carried signatures where none had existed before so my conclusion is that the error originated with Imaginistix and has not subsequently been corrected.

The Julie Bell version is dated 1991 whilst the Boris one is undated. That year is consistent with the game's release.

Probably painted in 1974 when Boris was still comparatively new to the fantasy scene. Such was the impact of this cover that he was commissioned to paint a further seven covers, a total of eight paintings for the first 15 issues of the magazine.

There is no sign of any signature on the cover but we can assume it was painted in 1986 or maybe 1985.

An edited version of the painting was used in the 2015 Fantasy Calendar under the title The Standoff

The painting features Nick Lavidia, one-time Mr America, as the male figure, (of course.)

This is one of six covers Boris painted for this author. It would seem that at the same time as this was published Ballantine also decided to revive five of her other titles by giving them new Boris covers.

This is a wraparound cover, the two panels being seperated by a tree which forms the spine of the book. The lefthand (back) pane shows a traditional fairytale castle viewed through the tree's foliage.

Painting is signed but undated, oil, 17 x 27 inches.

The painting is not dated but a jigsaw of the artwork gives the copyright year as 1979.

The painting is definitely dated 1983 so I'm not sure why there was such a long delay before it was published - according to Boris the lead-in times for (book) cover art is typically 6-8 weeks.

Painted 1979.

This particular painting depicts a scene towards the end of the film when Han Solo has been frozen in Carbonite prior to being sent to Jabba the Hut.

In addition to being an author, Leigh Bracket was also a well respected screenwriter, working on many quite successful movies including, shortly before her death, The Empire Strikes Back.

Painted 1977.

You might like to compare this with the similar painting Condor-Chuqui from 1992.

This is either a composite image or a reworking of Boris' 2006 painting Friends.

The painting is definitely dated 1983 so I'm not sure why there was such a long delay before it was published - according to Boris the lead-in times for (book) cover art is typically 6-8 weeks.

A 2019 post by Julie Bell says that it was painted '…about 15 years ago' which would be about 2014.

The title phrase comes, of course, from George Orwell's 1984 but what is not known is whether this provided the inspiration for the painting.

The model appears to be Boris' son Dorian.

For those that don't know, the donkey and elephant are the symbols of the american Democrat and Republican political parties respectively. If you haven't worked it out: Bill Clinton is a Democrat hence the unconscious/dead elephant.

Although it's not shown in my thumbnail, this piece is signed and dated.

A modified version was used in the 2017 Fantasy Calendar under the title Winged Creatures.

Although it is undated the exhibition stated that it was painted in 2013.

The preliminary artwork is dated 1999 whereas this painting is dated 2002 so clearly this was a rather protracted project.

CD1 was the source of the title (because the book itself doesn't provide any.)

In addition to the standard sized card this was also reproduced as one of the set's two 6½" x 10" Ultraprint card.

See Perdition for the other artwork.

This was also used as the centrepiece for the 2000 calendar under the title Jiroc of Sten: in this case it has been redated 1999 so I assume that it has been modified in some way but the only differences I can detect are possible extensions to the top and bottom to suit the calendar's centrepiece format.

The painting is neither signed nor dated but Dreamland tells us that the artist was Boris.

Boris posed himself for the two male figures.

The year is provided by The Fantastic Art of Boris Vallejo since the painting is signed but not dated.

This was used on card 14, and a promotional card, for the Boris Series 2: The Fantasy Continues trading card set. It was also used on a redemption card for the Boris & Julie: Strokes of Genius card set - lucky finders of this card were able to redeem it for a 22" x 29" (overall size) lithographic print.

An Albanian mythological creature, the Bolla awakened once a year, on St George's Day, and devoured any human it saw. After twelve years it mutated into the equally fearsome Kulshedra.

This must be something of a first – a Boris painting for a cookbook! It appeared in the book's Introduction.

For those that don't know, Bompas & Parr made their name with gelatine based products, hence the profusion of jellies in the painting, before expanding into other culinary areas.

Although Mirage does not use any titles, this painting is referred to as Jungle in Boris' introduction. I have since discovered that the french version of the book, which does have some titles, also uses this same name. Despite all this, it is more commonly referred to as Leather Jacket.

Bos primigenius was the aurochs, the now extinct wild ox, which was the precursor of all domestic cattle.

Both Boris and Boris Book 2 mention the painting but give no further information.

FABV gives the year as 1977 but this should probably be 1976 - the year the book was published.

This was Boris' first published magazine cover and would have been painted in 1970. His first attempt at fantasy art was sold prior to this piece but, due to the need to write a story around the artwork, it didn't get published until a few months after this one.

I would guess that the model was Julie Bell's sister Kat, who appears in several of Boris' paintings as well as Julie's.

Its worth noting that Boris' wife, Julie Bell, also painted a cover for one of the other two editions.

For those of you that don't know, 'Broad Jump' is an archaic name for the 'Long Jump.' In this case, achaic means any time before the early 1960s.

The painting is undated but as the book was published in January 1985 I think it safe to assume that it was painted in 1984.

The painting is, atypically, not dated, but the card set gives the year 1971 whilst the 1981 calendar says 1977. The latter date is in keeping with the publication of the book so I have assumed it to be correct.

The painting is not dated but was probably painted in 1978 since books #2 - #5 were published simultaneously in January 1979.

At left is detail of the vase in the lower left corner of the painting.

The painting is not dated but was probably painted in 1978.

I do not know whether the painting has actually been altered or if Boris has painted an overlay to digitally produce this image but, either way, I imagine this version was made to avoid any copyright conflicts with the original publisher.

An altered version is available from borisjulie.com entitled just Buffy.

The painting features Nick Lavidia, one-time Mr America, as the male figure, (of course.)

FAT shows the execution of this painting from start to finish.

[CD1 has a file with the name LOCHNESS.JPG which is, unfortunately, a duplicate of the image for Lavalite World. Presumably it should have contained this image.]

The painting is undated but would probably have been completed in 1978.

The original (English) book does not explicitly give any names so this is the title of the accompanying verse. The French version of the book excludes Doris Vallejo's poetry and, in its absence, does provide the same title for the painting.

This was also used in the 2002 Fantasy Calender for both the cover and month of December.

You may want to make a comparison with Boris' drawing Dragon and Butterfly from the Midnight Angels portfolio. The two drawings do have many similarities, and were produced at about the same time, but there is no doubt that they are completely different drawings because the foreground/background details are quite different. However, by superimposing a mirror image of one onto the other, it is clear that the modelling of the girl (sans wings) and dragon is identical so clearly Boris used the same initial artwork for both pieces. I said "modelling" because although the major details are identical the actual detail – the girl's wings, costume, jewellery, hair and the dragon's skin – are very different.