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| Biography |
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Stephen Youll was born in Hartlepool, England, in 1965. At a
very early age he knew he wanted to become an artist. Stephen
graduated from Durham New College of Art and Design, and then
furthered his art education at Sunderland University. To help
pay for much needed art materials, Steve would enter and win
art contests. He also was taking on professional advertising
work in the evenings and on weekends while working on his degree.
After graduating at the top of his class he worked as a historical
reconstruction artist at Durham Cathedral, one of the oldest
Cathedrals in England. Many of his art works are now on exhibit
at Churches and Cathedrals across Great Britain, with most of
these assignments being portraits of important people in the
church through out British history. One of Steve’s most
ambitious drawings was an aerial view of a cutaway of Durham
Cathedral using the only available reference which consisted
of ancient texts and sketches. It took one entire year to complete
the drawing and is the property of Durham Cathedral.
During this time at the Cathedral Steve was working on painting
samples in preparation of entering the Science Fiction and Fantasy
book field. He hung this new work for the first time in the
art show at the World Science Fiction Convention in 1987 at
Brighton, England. There he was discovered and hired by several
major American publishing companies. Very soon after this Steve
was so overwhelmed by book cover assignments that he gave up
his job at the Cathedral and went full time freelance as a Science
fiction and Fantasy artist. For the next two years, Steve and
his identical twin brother, Paul, who is also an artist, found
themselves frequently working together as a team on the same
piece of art. Sometimes sharing the painting at different times
of the day, or more often painting side by side.
This artistic partnership ended in December 1989 when Steve
married and relocated to the United States.
Stephen Youll’s art can be found on many hardback and
paperback book covers. Of the many companies he has worked for
include, Bantam Books, Warner Books,Tor Books, Avon Books, Ballentine
Books, Penguin Books,Daw Books, DC Comics, and the IBM Corporation.
He has illustrated covers for many famous authors including
Arthur C. Clark, C.J. Cherryh, Robert Silverberg, Margaret Weis
and Tracey Hickman, Ben Bova, Kevin J. Anderson, Ian McDonald,
Harry Turtledove, Michael Stackpole, David Feintuch, George
R. R. Martin, Robin Hobb, Brian Herbert, and many others but
notably Issac Asimov. Steve was commissioned to repackage the
entire Foundation series, the Robot series and the Empire novels.
He has also illustrated six Star Wars books, the first one,
“Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina” became the bestselling
science fiction anthology of all time.
Stephen Youll has also shown and exhibited his work throughout
the United States and England, he has been awarded with many
ribbons at conventions which include Best Artist and Best In
Show and Best Professional Artist. He has been nominated many
times by the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists
for Best Paperback and Best Hardback. Steve has also had certificates
of merit and been exhibited by the Society of Illustrators.
He has also exhibited his art at the Illustration House in New
York City. In 1996 he was presented with a gold award by the
Magazine and Book Sellers News Stand cover competition for most
outstanding cover of the year for “Tales of Jabba’s
Palace”. His work may be found in all the “Spectrum”
Books, “The Universes of Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman:
Realms of Dragons”, and in “Infinite Worlds, The
Fantastic Visions of Science Fiction Art”. Articles on
his work have been seen in “Realms of Fantasy” magazine
“Science Fiction Age” and “Airbrush Action”
magazine. Stephen Youll has been Artist Guest of Honor at Boscon
in 1998, and Artist Guest of Honor at the World Science Fiction
Convention in Philadelphia in 2001. A hard cover edition of
his art is currently out, published by the British company,
Paper Tiger, called “The Art of Stephen Youll: Paradox”.
It features over a hundred of his favorite paintings and sketches.
Stephen Youll currently lives in New Jersey with his wife and
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