illustrator
An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicat ...
and
fine artist
In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork. ...
.
Life
Palumbo is the son of science fiction scholar Donald Palumbo and illustrator
Julie Bell
Julie Bell (born October 21, 1958) is an American fine artist, illustrator, photographer, bodybuilder and wildlife painter. Bell is also a fantasy artist and a representative of the heroic fantasy and fantastic realism genres. Bell has won Ches ...
, brother of artist Anthony Palumbo, and stepson of illustrator
Boris Vallejo
Boris Vallejo (born January 8, 1941) is a Peruvian-American painter who works in the science fiction, fantasy, and erotica genres. His hyper-representational paintings have appeared on the covers of numerous science fiction and fantasy fiction ...
. He lives in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
.
He studied painting at the
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was "informally mentored" by Bell and Vallejo and also studied with artist Burt Silverman.
According to the science fiction scholar and critic
Gary Westfahl
Gary Wesley Westfahl (born May 7, 1951) is an American scholar of science fiction. He has written reviews for the ''Los Angeles Times'', ''The Internet Review of Science Fiction'' and Locus Online. He worked at the University of California, River ...
, concluding a short biography late in 2012, "If he continues upon his upward path, Palumbo may be able to prove, unlike his stepbrother Dorian Vallejo, that it is not always a burden to have a famous parent."
Artwork
As an illustrator, Palumbo works mainly in the fantasy and science fiction genres, where he has painted cover art and interior art for dozens of books and magazines as well as numerous illustrations for
Magic: The Gathering
''Magic: The Gathering'' (colloquially known as ''Magic'' or ''MTG'') is a tabletop and digital collectable card game created by Richard Garfield. Released in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast (now a subsidiary of Hasbro), ''Magic'' was the first ...
. Palumbo has also been a regular contributor to
Heavy Metal Magazine
''Heavy Metal'' is an American science fiction and fantasy fiction, fantasy comics magazine, published beginning in 1977. The magazine is known primarily for its blend of dark fantasy/science fiction, erotica and steampunk comics.
Unlike the tra ...
since 2008 as one of the creators involved in the Tarot feature. He has provided artwork for
collectible card game
A collectible card game (CCG), also called a trading card game (TCG) among other names, is a type of card game that mixes strategy game, strategic deck building elements with features of trading cards, introduced with ''Magic: The Gathering'' in ...
s, comic covers, album covers, film posters, magazine covers, advertisements, and film preproduction and his artwork has appeared in such publications as Spectrum, ImagineFX, and 2D Artist Magazine. Other clients include
Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics is an American comic book publishing, publisher and the flagship property of Marvel Entertainment, a divsion of The Walt Disney Company since September 1, 2009. Evolving from Timely Comics in 1939, ''Magazine Management/Atlas Co ...
,
Tor.com
''Tor.com'' is an online science fiction and fantasy magazine published by Tor Books, a division of Macmillan Publishers. The magazine publishes articles, reviews, original short fiction, re-reads and commentary on speculative fiction.
From 20 ...
,
Lucasfilm
Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC is an American film and television production company and a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, which is a business segment of The Walt Disney Company. The studio is best known for creating and producing the ''Star Wars'' and ' ...
,
Night Shade Books
Night Shade Books is an American, San Francisco–based imprint, formerly an independent publishing company, that specializes in science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Among its publications have been the U.S. edition of Iain M. Banks' novel ''T ...
Road Runner Records
Roadrunner Records is an American record label focused on heavy metal and hard rock bands. Founded in the Netherlands in 1980, it is now a division of Warner Music Group and is based in New York City.
History
The label was launched in 1980 in t ...
. His client list also includes
Acclaim Entertainment
Acclaim Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game publisher based in Glen Cove, New York. Originally formed by Greg Fischbach, Robert Holmes and Jim Scoroposki out of an Oyster Bay storefront in 1987, the company established a worldwide d ...
,
Black Library
The Black Library is a division of Games Workshop (formerly a part of BL Publishing) which is devoted to publishing List of Black Library novels, novels and audiobooks (and has previously produced art books, background books, and graphic novels) ...
, Riley Films, Science Fiction Book Club,
Solaris Books
Solaris Books is an imprint which focuses on publishing science fiction, fantasy and dark fantasy novels and anthologies. The range includes titles by both established and new authors. The range is owned by Rebellion Developments and distribute ...
,
Upper Deck Entertainment
The Upper Deck Company, LLC (colloquially as Upper Deck and Upper Deck Authenticated, Ltd. in the UK), founded in 1988, is a private company primarily known for producing trading cards. Its headquarters are in Carlsbad, California, United State ...
, and
Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and List of science fiction themes, science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for ga ...
.
He often uses models from the
Cabaret Red Light
Cabaret Red Light was a theater group based in Philadelphia that performed vaudeville, burlesque, spoken word and puppet theater, set to original music by The Blazing Cherries. In their first season, between November 2008 and July 2009, Cabaret Re ...
and Revival Burlesque troupes.
Palumbo has also been showing personal works in fine art galleries since 2003. Since then, he has shown in galleries in Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, London, and Paris. In 2010, Brand Studio Press released a collected volume of Palumbo's fine art nudes.