Gavin O'Keefe
Encyclopedia
Early life
Born in Melbourne. Lived in Sydney from the early-1980s to 1990. During that period, his artwork (usually black and white, though sometimes colour) was included in a variety of non-fiction books, science-fiction and horror magazine and other publications. His earliest covers were for books by Australian writers Jacob G. Rosenberg, Alex Skovron, Walter Adamson, and Ian Kennedy Williams.Career
O'Keefe's work has appeared in many journals, including Crypt of Cthulhu, Phantastique, Pulse of Darkness, Shadowplay, Terror AustralisTerror Australis
Terror Australis: the Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine was Australia's first mass market horror magazine. It succeeded the Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine edited by Barry Radburn and Stephen Studach and was the first magazine of its kind in Australia to pay authors...
, Esoterica, Wildfire and Theosophy in Australia. He has also provided illustrations for anthologies such as Terror Australis: Best Australian Horror
Terror Australis: Best Australian Horror
Terror Australis: Best Australian Horror was Australia's first original mass-market horror anthology for adults. It was edited by Leigh Blackmore....
.
He contributed some 'horsey' drawings to the first book devoted to the sport of polocrosse
Polocrosse
Polocrosse it is a team sport that is played all over the world. It is a combination of polo and lacrosse. It is played outside, on a field , on horseback. Each rider uses a cane stick to which is attached a racquet head with a loose, thread net, in which the ball is carried. The ball is made of...
in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
("Polocrosse
Polocrosse
Polocrosse it is a team sport that is played all over the world. It is a combination of polo and lacrosse. It is played outside, on a field , on horseback. Each rider uses a cane stick to which is attached a racquet head with a loose, thread net, in which the ball is carried. The ball is made of...
: Australian Made, Internationally Played" by Sally Boillotat, Belcris Books, Sydney 1990).
O'Keefe's first illustrations for Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
's Alice's Adventures In Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures...
(subtitled 'The GO Alice') were published in Melbourne in 1990; a new edition with entirely new illustrations is forthcoming from Ramble House. He has also illustrated Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark
The Hunting of the Snark
The Hunting of the Snark is usually thought of as a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll in 1874, when he was 42 years old...
.
He has had an interest in the art of Australian painters Rosaleen Norton
Rosaleen Norton
Rosaleen "Roie" Norton , who used the craft name of Thorn, was an Australian artist and occultist, in the latter capacity adhering to a form of pantheistic Neopagan Witchcraft or Wicca which was devoted to the god Pan...
, Norma Bull, and Vali Myers
Vali Myers
Vali Myers was an Australian artist who specialized in fine pen and ink drawings, born in Canterbury, Sydney....
. He has also written essays on writers and artists, such as "Sita and Salome: A Short Comparative Look at the Art of Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley was an English illustrator and author. His drawings, done in black ink and influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the Aesthetic movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James A....
and Mervyn Peake
Mervyn Peake
Mervyn Laurence Peake was an English writer, artist, poet and illustrator. He is best known for what are usually referred to as the Gormenghast books. They are sometimes compared to the work of his older contemporary J. R. R...
" in Peake Studies 2, No 3 (Winter 1991) and "Alice's Odyssey in Oz", Oz Arts 7 (1993).
O'Keefe illustrates for a wide variety of media, as exemplified by his artwork for the comic Jonny Flathead, Psychotronic Werewolf from Chris G.C. Sequeira
Chris G.C. Sequeira
Christopher Sequeira is a Sydney-based Australian writer and artist who works predominantly in the speculative fiction realm, especially with the horror, science fiction and mystery genres...
's Sequence Productions.
O’Keefe has also illustrated Philip José Farmer
Philip José Farmer
Philip José Farmer was an American author, principally known for his award-winning science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories....
’s The Green Odyssey, William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
's An Island in the Moon, Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
's The Poem and Leanne Frahm
Leanne Frahm
Leanne Frahm is an Australian writer of speculative short fiction.-Biography:Frahm was born in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia in 1946. She received her first nomination for her work in 1978 when she was a finalist for the 1979 Ditmar Award for best fan writer. The following year she won the best...
's Borderline. One of his most recent jackets is for the Lovecraftian novel Marblehead by Richard A. Lupoff
Richard A. Lupoff
Richard Allen Lupoff is an American science fiction and mystery author, who has also written humor, satire, non-fiction and reviews. In addition to his two dozen novels and more than 40 short stories, he has also edited science-fantasy anthologies. He is an expert on the writing of Edgar Rice...
, published by Ramble House
Ramble House
Ramble House is a small American publisher founded by Fender Tucker and Jim Weiler in 1999. The press specializes in reprints of long-neglected and rare crime fiction novels, modern crime fiction and scholarly works by noted authors on the crime fiction genre, and a host of other diverse books of a...
http://www.ramblehouse.com. (O'Keefe is the cover designer at Ramble House
Ramble House
Ramble House is a small American publisher founded by Fender Tucker and Jim Weiler in 1999. The press specializes in reprints of long-neglected and rare crime fiction novels, modern crime fiction and scholarly works by noted authors on the crime fiction genre, and a host of other diverse books of a...
.)
O'Keefe's particular interest is in fantasy illustration with a current emphasis on crime and cult fiction, especially the novels of Harry Stephen Keeler
Harry Stephen Keeler
Harry Stephen Keeler was a prolific but little-known American author.- Biography :Born in Chicago in 1890, Keeler spent his childhood exclusively in this city, which was so beloved by the author that a large number of his works took place in and around it...
.
Time Line: Selected Illustrations (Ramble House
Ramble House
Ramble House is a small American publisher founded by Fender Tucker and Jim Weiler in 1999. The press specializes in reprints of long-neglected and rare crime fiction novels, modern crime fiction and scholarly works by noted authors on the crime fiction genre, and a host of other diverse books of a...
, 2010) collects a range of O'Keefe's illustrations from his first four decades, including designs inspired by the macabre stories of H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
, Tod Robbins
Tod Robbins
Clarence Aaron "Tod" Robbins was an American author of horror and mystery fiction. Robbins attended Washington and Lee University and—along with Mark W...
and Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
, illustrations for science-fiction works by Richard A. Lupoff
Richard A. Lupoff
Richard Allen Lupoff is an American science fiction and mystery author, who has also written humor, satire, non-fiction and reviews. In addition to his two dozen novels and more than 40 short stories, he has also edited science-fantasy anthologies. He is an expert on the writing of Edgar Rice...
, Robert Sheckley
Robert Sheckley
Robert Sheckley was a Hugo- and Nebula-nominated American author. First published in the science fiction magazines of the 1950s, his numerous quick-witted stories and novels were famously unpredictable, absurdist and broadly comical.Sheckley was named Author Emeritus by the Science Fiction and...
and Philip José Farmer
Philip José Farmer
Philip José Farmer was an American author, principally known for his award-winning science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories....
, drawings for the ‘nonsense’ stories of Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
and Edward Lear
Edward Lear
Edward Lear was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularised.-Biography:...
, drawings inspired by the music of King Crimson
King Crimson
King Crimson are a rock band founded in London, England in 1969. Often categorised as a foundational progressive rock group, the band have incorporated diverse influences and instrumentation during their history...
, Queen
Queen (band)
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury , Brian May , John Deacon , and Roger Taylor...
and Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
, cover illustrations for mystery novels by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
-Biography:She was born in Berkeley, California. She attended Berkeley schools through high school followed by three years at San Francisco State College .In November 1969 she married Donald Simpson and divorced in February 1982...
, Mark Hansom, Walter S. Masterman
Walter S. Masterman
Walter Masterman was an English author of mystery, fantasy, horror and science fiction.-Biography:...
, Richard E. Goddard and Arlton Eadie, and a range of fairy
Fairy
A fairy is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural or preternatural.Fairies resemble various beings of other mythologies, though even folklore that uses the term...
and fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
.
Books
- Lewis CarrollLewis CarrollCharles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
, The Hunting of the SnarkThe Hunting of the SnarkThe Hunting of the Snark is usually thought of as a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll in 1874, when he was 42 years old...
(1993) - William BlakeWilliam BlakeWilliam Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
, An Island in the MoonAn Island in the MoonAn Island in the Moon is the name generally assigned to an untitled, unfinished prose satire by William Blake, written in late 1784. Containing early versions of three poems later included in Songs of Innocence and satirising the "contrived and empty productions of the contemporary culture", An...
(Newport News, Virginia: Purple Mouth Press, 1998) - Lewis CarrollLewis CarrollCharles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
, The Alice Books: Alice's Adventures in WonderlandAlice's Adventures in WonderlandAlice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures...
& Through the Looking-GlassThrough the Looking-GlassThrough the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There is a work of literature by Lewis Carroll . It is the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...
(Ramble House, 2011). - Time Line: Selected Illustrations (Ramble House, 2010).