Leo Dillon (1933-2012)

Artist Leo Dillon, 79, died May 26, 2012.

Dillon is best known for his professional and personal partnership with wife Diane Dillon (née Sorber) — they are the only artist team to jointly win a Hugo for Best Professional Artist (1971). They have worked extensively in various fields of commercial art, creating album covers, holiday cards, movie posters, advertising, and children’s books. They also illustrated numerous SF novels, notably many covers for Ace Books in the ’60s, including many of the Ace Specials, and are also known for their iconic cover and interior illustrations of Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions anthology. Their work in the SF field became less frequent after 1972.

Leo Dillon was born March 2, 1933 in Brooklyn NY. He attended the Parsons School of Design in New York, where he met Diane, also a student there. They both graduated in 1956, and were married the following year.

The duo won Caldecott Medals for Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears (1976) and Ashanti to Zulu (1977), and their work was collected in The Art of Leo and Diane Dillon (1981). They were named Spectrum Grand Masters in 1977, were inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 1997, and received a joint World Fantasy life achievement award in 2008.

For more details, see his entry in the Science Fiction Encyclopedia.

A complete obituary will appear in the July issue of Locus.