This fine-art print series by artist Rex Parker, H. G. Wells: a Time Traveler’s Life, commemorates the 125th Anniversary of H. G. Wells’s first novel, The Time Machine. But that’s just the beginning of a story that’s as much tapestry as tale.
Parker’s exuberant, Art Deco-inspired illustrations transport us back to the world of Wells and his thrilling era of iconic designers, writers, scientists, space explorers, world leaders, and one Invisible Man. Parker’s artworks showcase the fascinating personal connections between H. G. Wells and other timeless giants of his adventurous, long era: William Morris, George Bernard Shaw, Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Jules Verne, Jane Addams, Upton Sinclair, Albert Einstein, Neil Armstrong, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Frederic Goudy, C.F.A. Voysey, Winston Churchill, three Roosevelts (Theodore, Franklin and Eleanor), and even Chicago Alderman “Hinky Dink” Kenna.
Parker’s homage to Wells also includes the “Time Traveler in Tinseltown” print series, showcasing the intriguing connections between Wells and the top movie stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age, including Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Orson Welles. These prints not only offer a fresh look at luminaries of the past, they trace the magical influence of Wells on pop culture in modern novels, films and television. More than a science-fiction author, Wells’s endless curiosity about the world around him and its fascinating inhabitants made him an explorer in his own right.
From his American farmboy’s beginning in the Prairie State, Rex Parker expanded his world with an artist’s tools and talent, and with the assist of other extravagant minds including H. G. Wells. The author’s careful architecture of mysterious worlds inspired Parker’s own renderings which are both meticulous and exuberant. These posters honor the transcendent influence of Wells, an imagination that continues to reach into the future and graciously transports us along.
