Guess which MAD cover he drew, in 1976?
For years, the Internet could never get straight whether he was born in
1927 or 1931. Well, that seems to be settled.
https://www.mortkunstler.com/ (his site)
https://www.newsday.com/long-island/obituaries/mort-kunstler-obituary-jm3ll82b (paywall)
https://civilwartalk.com/threads/mort-k%C3%BCnstler-has-passed-away-at-97.214704/ (some condolences)
https://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2025/02/06/mort-kunstler-rip/ (from today; it has excerpts from Newsday and it includes plenty of
MK's artwork)
From Newsday(?):
..Although Mort Künstler once told an interviewer that he would prefer
to be remembered as a great athlete, he had to settle for being hailed
as America’s most prominent historical artist.
Künstler, who died Sunday at Good Shepherd Hospice in Rockville Centre
at age 97, was a member of four college teams. He even received an
athletic scholarship to attend UCLA after three years at Brooklyn
College but had to leave in his first semester when his father had a
heart attack. After returning to Brooklyn, he studied art at Pratt
Institute, where his backup career choice as an illustrator and fine
artist took root.
Künstler would go on to paint about 4,000 magazine covers, movie ads and
canvases for NASA, the U.S. Postal Service (a depiction of Black
soldiers in the Indian Wars in 1994), institutions and private
collectors. His paintings are in the permanent collection of more than
50 museums and his work has been featured in more than 20 books. He was
the subject of an A&E documentary in 1993.
His specialty was images of the Civil War, and historians and art
critics considered him the premier historical artist in the country —
one known for his detailed research and accurate depictions of scenes
from Colonial times through the Space Age. In 2006, M. Stephen Doherty,
editor of American Artist magazine, wrote “Künstler is now known as
America’s foremost historical artist” and since the late 1970s “has been
recognized as a distinguished fine artist.”...
https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=14324ad49b0ab5cb&rlz=1C1GCEV_enUS1052US1052&q=mort+kunstler+movie+posters&udm=2&fbs=ABzOT_CWdhQLP1FcmU5B0fn3xuWpA-dk4wpBWOGsoR7DG5zJBsxayPSIAqObp_AgjkUGqekYoUzDaOcDDjQfK4KpR2OIjj43mhrQBsMJgHY2LSx-SUj4wz68xSZ8iYTfqgrdxb3MJvHOMODdIcpti-xYMckL_DuO7Mno3LlWlsnznPPjfINcnPSb3s0mY1_Udv3xmGYGwDe_3zR2JNQT7OndwaUM5c3nJw&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiY2KPn76-LAxXhvokEHbA9I_YQtKgLegQIExAB&biw=1680&bih=923&dpr=1 (some movie posters - he did "The Poseidon Adventure," for one)
https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.books.childrens/c/l72BvzeuxaU/m/aVhL45MFCgAJ (what I posted in 2017 - plenty of book covers)
Excerpts:
I remember him mainly for his illustrations for the softcover edition of
"Two on an Island" (1965), by Bianca Bradbury, about two preteens
stranded on an island off of Connecticut. I also remember his sensitive
pencil illustrations for Robert Froman's "The Wild Orphan" (1972), about
a lonely Idaho boy who raises a cougar cub without his parents'
knowledge.
Other books he illustrated:
"The Red Badge of Courage"
"Bad Boy" (1953) by Jim Thompson,
Alfred Ollivant's "Bob, Son of Battle" (ed. 1960),
"The School Train" (1965) by Helen Acker,
"Mystery of the Silent Friends" (1966) by Robin Gottlieb & Al Brule
(cover),
"Mystery of the Witches' Bridge" (1967), by Barbee Oliver Carleton
"Page Boy of Camelot" (1967) aka "Page Boy for King Arthur," by Eugenia
Stone,
"Star of Danger" [1969, teen pulp fiction, Based on a True story - about
the WWII Danish resistance] by Jane Whitbread Levin,
"Jock's Island" (1969) by Elizabeth Coatsworth,
"The Lady With the Lamp" (1970) by Lee Wyndham, about Florence
Nightingale
"Mystery of the Secret Stowaway" (1970) by Joan Lowery Nixon,
Ernest Thompson Seton's "King of the Grizzlies" (ed. 1970),
"Treasures Beneath the Sea" (1971) by Robert Silverberg.
R.I.P. Mort Künstler, 97, MAD cartoonist & historical painter