Unquiet
Things

What a fun quest! Have you tried the Society of Illustrators? They might have relevant records or be able to point you to one of those brilliant people with encyclopedic knowledge of fantasy art.

Have you already tried finding out who would have records of art contracts for Dell at that time? Or who was handling covers or production at the time and might remember how this one came to be?

Some clues from a friend who was an editor at Dell during that period:

"Well, I know that the art director who commissioned the art was a guy named Bruce Hall. As for the artist, I'm really not sure. Another person who might know who painted this cover (if Bruce Hall isn't findable, or if he's no longer active (or alive--I really don't know) is Ron Buell, who was the editor-in-chief of Laurel Leaf Library in 1976 (and I'm sure also in '75--the art must have been commissioned either in '75 or '76.

Wow! I am no good at research beyond a good google so I wait with bated breath to hear what you dig up! I had that very edition as a child.

I read this book a couple of times when I was younger, and I liked it, sort of. Read it again at age 50 and it read like drivel. I guess it depends on your age.

How did I ever miss this missing fact? Your research is admirable! I'm asking about it on SF&F on scifi.stackexchange.com (and crediting your diligence) despite how many uncredited artists publishers used at the time. For the record, I've reread Wrinkle and its canon regularly over four decades, and it holds up every time.

That looks like early Boris to me.

Shared this fun article with a fellow illustrator thinking he'd enjoy it and speculating. Turns out he was out of town on a getaway and happened to be visiting concept artist Eliott Lilly, Charlie's Lily's son.
Eliott didn't think it was his fathers, but passed it on to his father who confirmed it was not him, but thought it might have been his assistant (at the time) Toni Taylor.
Looked into that, timeline did not mesh unfortunately, and Toni confirmed it was not hers. The quest continues! Good luck!

It looks like the illustrator is listed on the back cover. As far as I can read the name is Cliff Nielsen. Here’s a link to an Amazon copy of the book with a picture of the back cover — https://www.amazon.com/dp/0440998050/ref=olp-opf-redir_nodl?aod=1&tag=wwwcampusboocom587-20&condition=new&dplnkId=4f734fce-afce-4e5f-9c20-206200d0075b&dplnkId=e651ba44-36f5-488f-b8c7-19dc0e4d18a1

Another couple of artists you can cross off the list: my editor friend suggested the artist might be one used by Dell occasionally, Enric Torres-Prat. I found him on FB and he said it wasn't his work, nor the work of fellow artist Manuel Sanjulain.

The style really does look like Jean-Leon Huen's, but I can't find a full gallery of his work to see if this painting is included, or even what his signature may have looked like! I do know he did covers for Laurel Leaf (he did one for the Prydain Chronicles), but that palette (greens and blues with the POP of red) and the textures are very similar to his other work.

Hi! I'm Adam Rowe, the 70s sci-fi art guy that you reached out to. Sorry for not getting back! I actually only just found out that you asked while reading this post because Michael Whelan tweeted it, haha.

Unfortunately, I can't help. Not only do I not know, but you've already uncovered a lot more than I knew, so you're the one educating me on the issue. This is where I would put a shrug emoji, if I did that sort of thing.

My hunch would be that it's a lesser known artist, since the biggest names like Michael Whelan or Paul Lehr tend to have estates with enough of an internet presence to have taken credit long ago and prevented the question from turning into a mystery this big in the first place. I wouldn't be surprised if it was an artist without a background in science fiction illustration, given that the fantastic nature of the cover comes through in surreal composition rather than any common sci-fi signifier like spaceships or particularly alien landscapes. Good luck with the effort!

I wonder if the same artist did another cover for the Time Quintet.

This illustration of the cherubim:
https://isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/File:WNDNTHDR1980.jpg

. . . certainly looks to be in the same style, as noted by Reed above, with that same "palette (greens and blues with the POP of red)".

The date given for the cover is 1980. As with the cover you are searching for, no artist is known.

Another thought -- I wonder if Jean-Leon Huens' name appears in the corpus of correspondence held by Wheaton? Do the Dillons' name appear, in reference to their art for the books? Does Rowena Morrill's? Does any artist name appear?

The ISFDB links to a French WikiP page for Huens.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-L%C3%A9on_Huens

Which does mention that the Society of Illustrators (mentioned in the first comment above) honored him for his work. So that's another reason they might have information about him possibly having done the art for the first (and maybe the second) book of the Time Quartet.

At least at one point, Jean-Leon Huens was represented by Lavaty for his illustration work- they might have records from that era or be able to speak to the style? http://www.lavatyart.com/index.htm

for the Huens-Lavaty link: https://fineart.ha.com/itm/paintings/jean-leon-huens-belgian-1921-1982-the-emperor-probable-paperback-covermixed-media-on-paper13125-x-875/a/5347-71332.s

I guessed Richard Clifton-Dey! He did a lot of very colourful sf/fantasy art in the 70s and 80s http://metalonmetalblog.blogspot.com/2014/08/richard-clifton-dey.html

The Jean-Leon Huens speculation makes sense. He passed away around the time of A Wind in the Door’s publication, which would be a good reason why the two covers have a similar vibe whereas the next two that Dell published went a different route.

Random House (Dell’s parent company) has a corporate archive containing “editorial, publicity and administrative records; marketing materials; oral histories of current and former executives and editors.” Columbia University houses their materials up to 1999, seems as good a place to check as any.

The colours and use of black look like the same artist as my copy of The Forgotten Beasts of Eld from Avon in 1974. I don’t know if that’s of any use to you as I don’t know who did that. But I can’t see any mentions of it above.

The Mckillip cover seems to be by Rodney Matthews

I came here from the Tor article, and haven't yet looked at all the artists mentioned. It may be my mind making connections based on the batches of books I was reading near my copy of Wrinkle with this cover, but have you looked at Vincent di Fate? Though he might be too well known to have not had a cover accredited to him... Another place you could reach out to and see if they have any ideas is Analog Magazine. Stanley Schmidt was the editor for decades and they had tons of cover artists. He has since retired, but Analog's website lists the current editor, Trevor Quachri, at AnalogSF[at]DellMagazines.com. Science Fiction Writers of America lists Stanley Schmidt's contact as his agent: Eleanor Wood
Spectrum Literary Agency
320 Central Park West, Suite 1-D
New York, NY 10025
USA
Tel. (212) 362-4323

Thank you for introducing me to Endless Thread!

You know, it does remind me more than a little of Ron Walotsky’s work. Has he been mentioned yet?

Can't resist a good bibliographic mystery! I wondered if you'd considered contacting contemporary Hugo award nominees for best artist for 1976, if they're still around, and see if they may know something:
Rick Sternbach
George Barr
Stephen Fabian
Vincent Di Fate

Now I'm curious too! I've never seen this cover before but this is one of those books that profoundly shaped my life and I reread the quartet every year or so (I'm 44) along with Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles

I think there is an artist’s signature on the work, but I can’t find a clear enough picture to be sure it’s a signature, let alone what it says. I compare it to Lehr’s signature here: https://tinyurl.com/34zunsku

It looks like 4 letters starting with D. If it IS even a signature, it doesn’t look like Huens.

At least two people on Michael Whelan’s twitter post about this posted pictures of the copyright page of their copy. I don’t have a twitter account to ask there, but they might be able to get better photos of the cover.

I don't have a tumblr account, so I can't see what Kindigo means.

Tineye lets you select "biggest image", and this is the highest-resolution cover image I found:

https://149471972.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/wrinkle_in_time.jpg

The only thing that looks like a signature is a faint squiggle above the centaur's back - slightly lighter green on the more bluish cloud. Maybe I'm seeing things (pareidolia).

Speaking of seeing things, I was looking at the centaur's forehead, and it looks to me like there are the faint smeared, painted-over remnant of block-font digits there. The first two look like "21" ,and maybe "67" (much more smeared) following?

And on the rear leg, near the hock -- more smeared blurred digits. 3311, maybe?

Maybe I'm imagining it.

Try this image link: https://postimg.cc/gallery/K8Q8Wsm

Photo 1 is the clearest I could manage of a black line on the gold cliffs next to the head orb.

Photo 2 is an image of Paul Lehr’s signature from another piece known to be his, because the height and shape of the letters is very similar.

Thanks for the alternate link. But the high-res picture shows that line much more clearly, and it looks like... just a line. Not even a hint of risers or descenders. There are darker and lighter parts that perhaps got turned into the up-and-down squiggles in the lower resolution picture by the lossy compression algorithm.

It occurred to me that some of the squiggles on the hi-res image might be artifacts of the book having been used as a surface by someone writing on a paper placed on the cover.

It seems like a long shot, but has anyone mentioned Richard Hescox?

Her agent might know.
http://aaronpriest.com/member/lisa-erbach-vance/

You could try posting this question on the File770 website. Someone might be able to give you a few good clues there… good luck with solving this visually appealing mystery…

Has anyone mentioned Jerome Podwil. I see similarities in his cover for The Horn of Time. https://70sscifiart.tumblr.com/post/181558513134/jerome-podwil

The color palette and such reminds me some of Clyde Caldwell's work. He would have been in his mid to late 20s at the time this was done.

This hasn't been folded in yet from Michael Whelan's twitter yet, so:

https://twitter.com/whelanmichael/status/1661951318343184386

We know the art director and editor-in-chief, but they couldn’t recall the artist and there are no invoices from the time.

https://twitter.com/whelanmichael/status/1662477192767365122

Update on recent developments behind the scenes:

Bruce Hall (the art director at Dell at the time) believes the mystery artist was represented by agent Darwin Bahm. Efforts are being made to contact Darwin.

Well, still trying. Alfred Kelsner was suggested as a comment at SFF Stack Exchange (so was your page, which I pointed out was linked as the impetus for the question; someone needs Who's glasses) but NO ONE has dared to try to post an answer. Not one. Odd. I looked at Kelsner's work and it just doesn't look like the same medium, but at least it's a name you can check, too.

From a community that lives for story ID and the like in SF&F, feeling the burn!

My brother Richard painted that cover

Richard Bober painted this. This painting was in his collection and I have a scanned slide from 20 years ago when we were archiving work. This has always been one of my favorites of my uncles paintings, he passed away in December 2022

A quick trip to Internet Sci Fi Database would have solved this is under a minute. https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?7526