I was speaking to artist Michael Johnson on the phone last Wednesday when he mentioned that sadly Gino D’Achille had died on the Friday before. Gino had been suffering with Parkinson’s which meant he was unable to do what he loved best, painting. but could still sketch according to his daughter Simona when we last contacted back in 2013. The following is from his website;

Gino D’Achille was born in Rome in 1935 and displayed a precocious talent as an artist from a very young age – being invited at 11 years old to present a portrait he’d made of Pope Pius XII to the pontiff himself. From 13 he studied at Rome’s Liceo Artistico, going on to the University of Architecture at 19. By now, he was already drawn to the world of commercial art, producing advertising illustrations for the prestigious agency Studio Favalli in his spare time. This led him to pursue a full-time career in Milan, where he gained the attention of British scouts, and in 1964 Gino was persuaded to move to London. Here, he immediately established his credentials with his illustrations for David Kossof’s popular Bible Stories, commissioned by WM Collins.

His international reputation gained hold with his 1973 paintings for the John Carter of Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, going on to create over 100 cover paintings for other science-fiction titles published by Daw Books, Ace, Ballantine and various other publishers. He is also well known for his series of covers for the much-loved Flashman series of novels by George Macdonald Fraser, as well as countless western adventure stories, crime thriller and war stories, romance novels and children’s books.

Gino lived in London and Corsica with his wife, painter Mim Hain.

Gino painted many covers for PAN and here are a couple of links to pages showing some examples I’ve featured before. I will make up a section soon to try and include as many examples as I can find and put them all in one place.

Here is the link to his HART covers and another to the du Maurier page with several of his covers.