Greg Hildebrandt, noted for his classic work with his twin brother Tim for Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings, died on October 31, 2024, at the age of 85. He had been dealing with heart medication side effects for the past five months. The two were credited together as the Brothers Hildebrandt; Tim passed away in 2006.
The brothers, best known for their painted fantasy art, created Lord of the Rings calendars from 1976-1978 and the world-famous UK poster for Star Wars in 1977, as well as the 1981 poster for Clash of the Titans. The two worked independently after that, with Greg illustrating a book, Greg Hildebrandt’s Favorite Fairy Tales, and creating book illustrations for a variety of titles and cover art for such magazines as Heavy Metal and Omni.
The two came back together in the mid-1990s, and their work in this period included the Marvel Masterpieces card set, as well as Marvel posters and the Superman: The Last God of Krypton graphic novel. The brothers illustrated the six-issue Terry & the Pirates comic from Avalon in 1999. In the 2000s, they painted over 100 illustrations for Magic: The Gathering cards.
More recently, Greg Hildebrandt had been desiging album covers and tour merchandise for the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. He also created the cover for Star Trek: Year Five #1 for IDW in 2019 (see “Series Imagines the End of the Enterprise’s Mission“). IDW published The Marvel Art of the Brothers Hildebrandt in 2020 (see “Explore ‘The Marvel Art of the Brothers Hildebrandt’“), which included the Marvel Masterpieces card art and the X-Men 2099 graphic novel they illustrated.
In 2010, Greg received the Chesley Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement from the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists. With his brother, he was awarded the Inkpot Award by Comic-Con International in 1995 and the Gold Medal by the Society of Illustrators.
Source: ICv2
