Jun 24, 2021 - Sale 2574

Sale 2574 - Lot 76

Price Realized: $ 2,125
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
DON BRAUTIGAM (1946-2008)
"The Dark Half." Cover illustration for the first paperback edition of The Dark Half by Stephen King (New York: Signet, 1990). Primarily airbrush with liquid acrylic finished with Krylon artist spray fixative on board. 505x405 mm; 20x16 inches. Signed "D. Brautigam" in lower left image.

Provenance: Estate of the artist.

One of Brautigam's most recognized Stephen King covers. Applying intense red paint to two birds whose profiles form a pair of seeking eyes, he perfectly depicts the book's ominous premonition "The sparrows are flying again" for the tale which plays with the concept of two halves forming a whole.

Brautigam was a highly skilled illustrator who pioneered the use of black paint against striking colors to create some of the most iconic heavy metal album covers and thriller/horror genre book covers throughout the 1980s and 90s. Among his most famous are the 1986 Metallica album Master of Puppets, Mötley Crüe's 1989 album Dr. Feelgood, and numerous covers for the wildly popular Signet paperbacks of Stephen King novels including The Stand and The Dark Half.