Ron Clyne

(December 28, 1925 – February 26, 2006)

Ronald S. Clyne was a prolific fanartist active in the 1940s and '50s. Paul Freehafer published a FAPAzine, Presenting Ronald Clyne, as an introduction in 1943, after Clyne moved to L.A. from his native Chicago, where the teenager had already been making a name for himself in both fan and professional art.

He was a member of LASFS. Francis Towner Laney described him in Ah! Sweet Idiocy! (1948):

A very young boy, slender and delicate, who had a not inconsiderable artist­ic ability was Ronald Clyne, who was around the club a great deal un­til the feud broke out. His chief interest in fantasy was art, and I still remember how persistent he was when someone had an original or illustrated edition which struck his fancy. He would run the person wild making offer after offer, eventually running the price up to a fabulous amount, particularly if it was a trade deal. He was very generous with his own artwork, but publishing it was not always much fun, since Ron was a perfectionist to end all perfectionists, and would think nothing of making some hapless editor have a Clyne drawing re-lithographed if he fancied he saw a slight blemish in it. Ron was too single-mindedly wrapped up in his artistic aspirations to be as good an all-around associate as some of the others, but he was a very smart kid and very likely will make a good name for himself in commercial art. 

Clyne drew professionally for book publishers, including Arkham House, and prozines. He later designed record album covers. Clyne's work is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. At some point he married Hortense Clyne, and they moved to Brooklyn Heights, NY, in 1965.

• Entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.
• Articles about Clyne in eI 41 (December 2008):
  • “A Labor of Love: The Fantasy Art of Ronald Clyne” by Dan Steffan.
  • “Six Hours with Ronald Clyne” by Richard Newsome.
• “Summoning the Divine: Oceanic Treasures in the Heart of Brooklyn Heights” by Marla Yost, Sotheby’s, June 21, 2019.

Fanzines and Apazines:

• Wallace Smith Portfolio [1944]

Rexstriped cover art by Ronald Clyne. From Lynn Hickman’s TLMA 3 (May 1952).

T. Bruce Yerke as Dr. Fassbeinder by Ron Clyne.
From Presenting Ronald Clyne (September 1943).

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Person

1925—2006

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