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In 1971, 1 was working part time at a used memorabilia bookstore in Hollywood. While throwing out some damaged magazines, a 1917 Century Magazine caught my attention. There was an ad for Edison Mazda lamps in full color. It depicted a woman sitting on a bolder by a tree with these beautiful, jewel-like colors. The artist was Maxfield Parrish. Shortly after that, the cover to Imagination's Oct 1950 issue had me transfixed. Here was this brightly colored painting of a woman riding a large Parrot. The artist's style was reminiscent of Maxfield Parrish. The artist, 1 found out, was Hannas Bok

1 attended the 1971 Science Fiction convention in San Francisco where I met Bok's long time friend, Emil Petaja who, in 1968, founded the Bokanalia Foundation. He introduced me to Underground cartoonist Trina Robbins. She explained that while she was in New York, Bok used her face as a mold for one of his masks. Bok’s mask work was influenced by W T Benda, a popular illustrator of the 1920s and 30s. Benda did exotic covers of beautiful women. You can observe Benda's influence in Bok's black-and-white pulp illustrations from the 1940's. Benda was also a skilled mask maker and wrote a book on the subject, Masks, in 1944.

Hannas Bok was more than an artist. He might be described as a true Renaissance man as he was a fine novelist, poet, lithographer, photographer, sculptor, mask maker, and ceramicist. As with many other creative geniuses, so it was with Hannas Bok, that when they're no longer with us we begin to take sharp notice of them. This is especially true of Bok.

Hannas Bok lived most of his life in an art-treasure filled slum apartment in the heart of Manhattan. He was a lonely hermit in one of the busiest of cities. Although he made many good friends early in his life and cherished them, eventually it came to the point that visitors to his ugly Eyrie were few and often unwelcomed. Out of disillusion­ment his youthful joy in life gradually turned bitterly inward. For the last ten years of his life he was a recluse among his dazzling art, his books, and his beloved music. After years of poor diet and bad health, he died alone at night of a heart attack in 1964.

Hannas Bok left behind a glorious heritage. In 2005, you can find a wealth of information about Bok on the internet and books. One is The Illustrators in America 1860-2000 by Walt Reed and a new book called Maxfield Parrish and the American Imagists.