If you close your eyes and think about space, you probably don't see the high-definition, cold vacuum of a modern SpaceX launch. You see a massive, hulking freighter with orange stripes. You see a ringed planet through a hazy, purple atmosphere. You see a civilization that looks like it was built by people who owned a lot of airbrushes and probably listened to a lot of Yes.
That’s the enduring power of sci fi 70s art.
It’s a specific vibe. It’s "Used Universe." Long before George Lucas made "dirty" space a cinematic standard, artists were already painting it. They were moving away from the shiny, sterile rockets of the 1950s and into something much more visceral, psychedelic, and honestly, a bit weirder. This wasn't just about drawing robots. It was about a total cultural shift where the Cold War, the energy crisis, and a sudden explosion of mass-market paperbacks collided to create a visual language we still haven't moved past.
The Paperback Revolution and the Airbrush King
In the early 1970s, the science fiction publishing market exploded. Publishers like Ballantine, DAW, and Panther needed covers that would scream from the spinning racks at drugstores and bus stations. They didn't want technical diagrams. They wanted dreams.
Enter Chris Foss.
If you look at the covers he did for Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series or E.E. "Doc" Smith’s Lensman books, you’ll see the DNA of modern sci-fi. Foss didn't care about the laws of physics. He painted starships that looked like giant, industrial cathedrals or armored behemoths covered in intricate "greebling"—that’s the term for all those little bits of technical-looking clutter that make a model look huge.
His work was a radical departure. Before him, space was mostly black. Foss made it colorful. He used airbrushes to create these incredibly smooth gradients, making giant metal hulls look like they were reflecting suns we couldn't see. He basically invented the aesthetic of "the big machine."
I’ve spent hours looking at his sketches for the unproduced Jodorowsky’s Dune project. You can see how those designs bled directly into Alien (1979). When Dan O'Bannon and Ridley Scott were putting that movie together, they didn't just hire H.R. Giger; they looked at the whole British sci-fi art scene. They wanted that sense of scale. They wanted the grime.
Why Everything Looked Like a Pink Floyd Album Cover
It’s impossible to talk about this era without mentioning Roger Dean. While he’s technically a "fantasy" artist in many circles, his work for bands like Yes and Asia defined the "soft" side of sci fi 70s art.
Dean’s floating islands and organic, bone-like architecture represented a different kind of future. It wasn't about chrome; it was about biology. This was the era of the "Whole Earth Catalog" and a growing environmental consciousness. People were thinking about how technology might merge with nature.
Think about it.
👉 See also: Why University Place 8 Theatre Still Wins Over the Big Multiplexes
You had the Apollo missions ending in 1972. The moon was "done." The collective imagination shifted from "how do we get there?" to "how do we live there?" This is where artists like Bruce Pennington or John Berkey come in. Berkey, especially, had a painterly, impressionistic style that felt like a fever dream of a bustling spaceport. He famously did some of the early poster work for Star Wars, and his ships look like they’re moving at a thousand miles an hour even when they’re sitting still on a canvas.
The Brutalist Influence and the "Hard" Edge
Not everything was a colorful nebula, though. There was a darker, more industrial side to the decade. This was the era of Brutalism in architecture—huge, imposing concrete structures.
Artists like John Harris (who started his career toward the end of the 70s) and the legendary Syd Mead brought a level of industrial design rigor to the genre. Mead, who would eventually go on to design the look of Blade Runner, began his career in the automotive industry. He didn't just draw a flying car; he drew the suspension system. He understood how light hits chrome and how rain slicks a dark pavement.
This "hard" sci-fi art wasn't just decorative. It was speculative engineering. It felt grounded in a way that made the fantasy elements feel more dangerous. If the machine looks like it actually works, you’re more afraid when it breaks.
The Misconception of "Cheesy" Art
One of the biggest mistakes people make when looking back at sci fi 70s art is labeling it all as "kinda cheesy" or "retro."
That’s a lazy take.
In reality, these artists were working with limited tech. There were no digital tablets. There was no Photoshop. If you wanted a lens flare, you had to paint it by hand. If you wanted a starfield, you flicked white paint off a toothbrush.
The level of technical mastery required to produce a 12x18 inch painting that could be blown up to a movie poster size is staggering. Look at the work of Michael Whelan. His covers for The Dragonriders of Pern or his later work for Stephen King’s The Dark Tower show a mastery of lighting that most modern digital artists struggle to replicate. He brought a sense of classical realism to worlds that didn't exist.
The Forgotten Master: Peter Elson
While everyone knows Foss and Giger, Peter Elson is the secret favorite of many illustrators. His work had a certain "clunkiness" that felt lived-in. He loved using bold primary colors on ships—think bright yellows and deep reds—which made the emptiness of space feel less lonely and more like a playground.
His influence is all over the video game Homeworld. If you’ve ever played that, you’ve basically played a Peter Elson painting.
This brings up a weird point about how we consume art now. We’re so used to "concept art" which is often muddy and focuses on mood over detail. 70s art was the opposite. It was about clarity. Even when the subject was surreal, the execution was sharp.
🔗 Read more: Stars and Stripes Forever: Why This 1952 Movie Still Defines the Hollywood Biopic
Finding the Real Stuff: A Guide for New Collectors
If you're looking to actually get into this, you need to know where the bodies are buried. Most of the original oil paintings by the big names are in private collections or museums now, and they cost as much as a small house.
But the books? The books are everywhere.
- Terran Trade Authority: These books (like Spacecraft 2000 to 2100 AD) are basically the "Bible" of 70s sci-fi art. They took various paintings by different artists and invented a fictional history to link them all together. It's a goldmine of Foss, Elson, and Cowley.
- Heavy Metal Magazine: Started in 1977, this brought the European "Moebius" (Jean Giraud) style to the US. It’s more psychedelic, more adult, and much more experimental.
- Paperback "Job Lots": Go to eBay. Search for "70s sci-fi paperback lot." You aren't buying them for the stories (though some are great); you're buying them for the 4-inch tall masterpieces on the covers.
Why It Still Matters Today
We are currently in a "Retrofuturism" boom. You see it in movies like Dune: Part Two, where the ship designs feel heavy and brutalist rather than sleek and iPhone-like. We’re tired of the "glass slab" future. We want knobs. We want wires. We want things that look like they were repaired by a guy with a welding torch in a cargo bay.
The sci fi 70s art movement captured a moment where we were still optimistic enough to think we’d be living on Mars by now, but cynical enough to know the toilets would probably still leak. It’s that tension between the grand scale of the cosmos and the grittiness of human existence that makes it timeless.
Actionable Steps for Exploring 70s Sci-Fi Art
If you want to dive deeper into this aesthetic or even incorporate it into your own creative work, don't just look at Pinterest. Go to the sources.
- Track down "Science Fiction Monthly" back issues. This was a UK tabloid-sized magazine that printed art at a massive scale. It's the best way to see the detail in the brushwork without owning an original.
- Study the "Greeble." If you're an artist or 3D modeller, look at how Chris Foss used repetitive geometric shapes to imply scale. It’s a masterclass in visual storytelling through texture.
- Check out the "Science Fiction Art" book by Chris Foss (1976). It’s out of print, but used copies are the ultimate reference guide for the industrial space look.
- Look at the album covers of Hipgnosis. They weren't just doing Pink Floyd; they did a lot of sci-fi adjacent work for bands like ELO and Led Zeppelin that utilized the same techniques as the book cover artists.
- Visit the "Museum of Pop Culture" (MoPOP) in Seattle if you're ever in the area. They frequently have rotations of original sci-fi illustrations from this golden era.
The future doesn't have to be a clean, white room. It can be a massive, rusted junker floating past a neon-blue star. That's the lesson the 70s taught us, and honestly, it’s a much more interesting place to be.