Career
His broad visual vocabulary enabled him to render the objects, spaceships and scenes in whatever was presented to him as they were described in the books and stories he illustrated. This ability made him very popular among people with an engineering background. During most of Ejler Jakobsson"s tenure as editor of Galaxy Science Fiction from 1969 to 1974, Gaughan did all the illustration and much of the design that went on in the magazine.
In addition, many of the books he did for Ace featured hand-lettered titled pages, frontispieces, or maps with Gaughan"s distinctive calligraphy.
One example is its 1966 edition of Alan Garner"s The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. (Ace replaced the Gaughan cover illustration in its second printing, 1978) L. Sprague de Camp"s 1967 anthology, The Fantastic Swordsmen, included a Gaughan map before each of the eight collected stories.
His maps also grace the Ace first editions of some Witch World novels – including the 1963 first edition of the first one – and Mark South. Geston"s Lords of the Starship (title page and map). Gaughan illustrated the covers and hand-lettered title pages for the unauthorized first paperback edition of J. R. R. Tolkien"s The Lord of the Rings, which Ace released in 1965.
Beside his professional work, he was a frequent contributor to San Francisco fan magazines.
In his heyday he was often nominated for Hugo Awards for both professional artist and best fan artist simultaneously. Locus ran a column by him for a while. In his memory, the New England Science Fiction Association presents the annual Jack Gaughan Award for best emerging sf illustrator.
Gaughan was posthumously inducted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2015.
