Tom Beecham

The American artist and illustrator Thomas A. Beecham (1926 - 2000) is best known for his paintings of exotic animals and landscapes. Beecham was born on a cattle ranch in Goodland, Kansas, in 1926, and in 1933 his family moved to Grand Junction, Colorado. In 1947, after serving in the US Navy in the South Pacific during WWII, Beecham enrolled in the St. Louis School of Fine Arts. He moved to New York City in 1951 to work as a commercial artist. Beecham contributed illustrations to numerous periodicals including Amazing Stories, Fantastic, Fantastic Adventures, Field and Stream, If, National Geographic, Outdoor Life, Reader's Digest, and Thrilling Science Fiction. Beecham also illustrated numerous book covers for science and adventure fiction texts like Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World (Pyramid, 1960) and H. Rider Haggard's Allan Quatermain (Ballantine, c. 1963) and King Solomon's Mines (Ballantine, c. 1963). During the 1970s, Beecham focused on painting wildlife scenes of the western United States. He was a member of the Society of American Historical Artists and the Society of Animal Artists. Beecham died in 2000.

Further Reading

Beecham, Tom. "Men Behind Fantastic Adventures: Tom Beecham." Fantastic Adventures. 14.12 (1952): 2. Internet Archive. 11 May 2018.

Dallas, Jo Beecham. "Tom Beecham (1926 - 2000)." askART. 11 May 2018.

"Summary Bibliography: Tom Beecham." Ed. Al von Ruff. The Internet Speculative Fiction Database. 11 May 2018.

"Tom Beecham (American, 1926–2000)." Artnet. 11 May 2018.