Michael Barry Hinge, Sci-Fi illustrator, graphic designer (Mag covers)
Hyfler/Rosner
The Dominion Post (Wellington, New Zealand
December 11, 2003, Thursday
One of his book covers
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~brams007/simak/images/covers_hc/choice.jpg
Michael Barry Hinge, illustrator and graphic designer. B Auckland, August 9,
1931, d Philadelphia, August 2003.
DESPITE success as an illustrator and graphic designer after moving to the
United States 44 years ago, Mike Hinge remained virtually unknown in New
Zealand.
His success included portraits with a distinct pop art influence for the
cover of Time magazine -- Japanese emperor Hirohito in October, 1971 and
Richard Nixon, as the Watergate crisis deepened, in November 1973.
The artwork for both covers are now held by the Smithsonian. Film-maker
Stanley Kubrick hired Hinge to design a "cryogenic module" for a display at
cinemas to promote his 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, but the display was
never constructed.
Hinge illustrated many covers and interiors for American science fiction
magazines Amazing Science Fiction, Fantastic and Analog in the 1970s, as
well as book covers. A comic strip, which he also wrote, appeared in the
graphic magazine Heavy Metal in 1982.
As a professional artist, Hinge was nominated for a Hugo Award -- sci-fi's
most prestigious trophy -- in 1973. New Zealand has featured in the awards
only twice since then, when Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring won
best dramatic presentation last year and The Two Towers this year. Hinge was
also nominated six times for the Locus Awards bestowed by American sci-fi
news magazine, Locus.
Hinge grew up in a state house in Mission Bay, Auckland. His English father
was a bus driver and his South African mother was a former nurse. Hinge's
twin obsessions were sci-fi and everything American. As a child he would
stay up till 3am, drawing spaceships and futuristic vehicles. By the time he
was a teenager in the late 1940s, he regularly wore a cowboy hat, listened
to the blues and Louis Armstrong and was learning to play jazz trombone.
By the standards of the day, he was a maverick. To the consternation of
audiences at Auckland cinemas, the Americanophile refused to stand when God
Save The King was played before each film. He hated the Union Jack on the
New Zealand flag and suggested a koru design instead.
Hinge studied at Auckland's Elam School of Fine Arts in 1947 and 1948, then
worked as a commercial artist at the Farmers Trading Company and advertising
agencies. In his spare time he helped illustrate several New Zealand amateur
sci-fi publications.
Hinge remained fixated with the US. In 1952, he had applied for a green card
to work there. In 1958, he was granted one and left in June. Until he
boarded a ship to America, the only place he had visited outside Auckland
was Waiheke Island. He enrolled at the Art Center School of Design in Los
Angeles. Commissions included record covers, fashion layouts for JC Penney
and supermarket interiors.
In New York from 1966, Hinge worked in advertising agencies as an art
director and designer. His designs for typefaces and graphics won him
several awards and were exhibited, including a show at the Brooklyn Museum.
A book about his art, The Mike Hinge Experience, was published in 1973, and
his work featured in the anthology The New Visions, in 1982.
Hinge returned home only once. In 1984, his brother Noel, who had won $
333,000 in Lotto's predecessor Golden Kiwi, paid for the trip and bought him
a house in Orewa. But Hinge found the pace too slow and advertising agencies
would not hire him.
He returned to New York the following year and resumed work as a freelance
illustrator. His last professional work was the cover of Amazing Stories in
1993.
Hinge was based in Philadelphia for the past 10 years. He never married,
fearing he couldn't support a family as a freelance artist. He lived alone
and friends became concerned after they had not seen him for several days.
Police broke into his apartment and found his body. He had died of a heart
attack, most likely about a week earlier, around his 72nd birthday. His
ashes were interred in Auckland. -- By Tom Cardy. Sources: N Hinge, N Rowe,
S Meschkow, Locus Online, The Mike Hinge Experience by James Steranko.