The Art of Bob Haberfield
The legacy of a brilliant fantasy artist
Bob Haberfield is probably best known in science fiction and fantasy circles for his iconic covers for the 1970s Mayflower editions of Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion series. Haberfield’s artwork was astonishing, and while there wasn’t always an immediately obvious connection with the story, he managed to evoke the baroque, luxuriant imagination of the novels to a far greater extent than later artists. Mike Moorcock himself spotted his paintings on a visit to the publisher’s art editor and insisted they be used. I wrote an article on my previous blog about the covers and at the time knew little else about the artist behind them, asking anyone who could shed light on his life to get in touch.
Sadly Bob passed away in 2021. Shortly afterwards his son, Ben, contacted me as he’d inherited all his father’s artworks and was deciding what to do with them. It soon became clear that we were not just dealing with a science fantasy illustrator famous for over a hundred iconic covers, but someone who had dedicated his life to art in all its forms, leaving a legacy of over 3,000 individual paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs etc. Ben had just transported a trailer load from his dad’s last home in Wales to his own house in France.
What became clear is that the commercial artwork was Bob’s day to day bread and butter graft to keep a roof over his head and fund his real passion, which was fine art. Working through his catalogue reveals an astonishing range of styles and media: Abstract Expressionism; Primitivism heavily influenced by his time living in Australia, still-life; landscapes and figure work etc.
I’m now working with Ben Haberfield and John Davey on a set of books which will showcase Bob Haberfield’s work and also contain essays by friends and family giving insights into the life and work of this complex and sometimes troubled man. In many ways his trajectory mirrors that of many creatives living through the bohemian excesses of the 60s and 70s (including joining a Buddhist commune) before crashing and burning towards the end of the twentieth century. Fortunately, in the last few decades of his life Bob recovered from alcoholism, rebuilt his life, settled in Wales and painstakingly set about cataloguing all his artwork. Even so his own records barely touch the surface of a huge body of work spanning over four decades.
The plan is to first of all release studies of his work, both fine art and commercial, along with a series of essays to introduce readers to this complex and fascinating man (for example, he was a professional level flamenco guitarist). It’s not always an easy task. Tracking down his famous fantasy and science fiction covers has been a challenge as many of the originals ended up in the hands of publishers and we think there may be a few works out there that we haven’t managed to locate or properly identify. Bob himself was less precious about his commercial work as he saw it as a source of income that allowed him to follow his true passions.
After the books are published we plan to put his entire art catalogue online. As we approach various milestones in the project I’ll keep you updated. I also highly recommend that you follow the Instagram account @bobhaberfield.art where his son is posting regular samples of his dad’s work.
Wonderfully written. Bob would be so thrilled to know his work was being appreciated