I’m pleased, proud and honored that the second book in THE ART OF RON LESSER book series I’m co-editing with Ron and graphic designer Bill Cunningham is now out on Amazon worldwide in paperback and deluxe hardcover editions. A Digital Replica Kindle edition will be published on Amazon early in 2025.
Titled THE ART OF RON LESSER, VOLUME 2: DANGEROUS DAMES AND COVER DOLLS, it showcases scores of the paintings of sexy women Lesser has done in recent decades for galleries.
Some are modern versions of the iconic “dangerous dame” style cover art he did for paperbacks in the 1960s and 1970s.
Others are paintings of sexy celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Bettie Page, Brigitte Bardot, and Pam Anderson, and pop culture characters like Vampirella, Red Sonja, and Harley Quinn.
The first book in this series, THE ART OF RON LESSER, VOL. 1: DEADLY DAMES AND SEXY SIRENS was published in 2023.
It focuses on the classic vintage paperback cover and movie poster artwork Ron did in the 1960s and 1970s.
It includes an extensive interview with Ron conducted by vintage crime novel and paperback cover expert J. Kingston Pierce.
VOLUME 2 includes a Foreword by another legendary comic and book cover artist, Joe Jusko.
Joe is one of the world’s best known comic and book cover artists. I’m one of his many fans.
I especially love Joe’s cover art for the LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER graphic novels and the awe-inspiring covers he’s been doing more recently for the official Edgar Rice Burroughs Authorized Library book series.
The introduction for VOLUME 2 was written by Dan Zimmer, Editor of ILLUSTRATION magazine (www.theillustratedpress.com) and many excellent art books. In it, Dan provides an overview of the different phases of Ron Lesser’s career as an artist. And, like the first volume, VOLUME 2 includes commentary by Ron about the paintings shown.
As Jeff made clear in his interview and as Dan Zimmer notes in his introduction to THE ART OF RON LESSER, VOL. 2, Ron is most widely known as one of the top cover artists for classic crime, mystery, Western and action/adventure paperback novels.
In the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, many of the cover paintings done by Lesser and other top illustration artists in those decades, like Robert McGinnis and Robert Maguire, feature alluring women.
There are other sides of his long career that are less well known. For example, as the market for paperback cover art faded away in the 1980s, Lesser became a successful and versatile historical artist, painting images from the Civil War and the Old West. He also did sports paintings and landscapes. Those and other aspects of his long career will be featured in future volumes in THE ART OF RON LESSER series.
In recent years, Ron has gone back to his paperback cover and movie poster roots, though in a new way. He noticed that paintings like those he’d been commissioned to do for covers and posters in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s—especially the ones that have images of sexy characters and celebrities—were selling for good prices in auctions and at illustration art galleries.
That inspired him to do new paintings along the same lines to sell to collectors and to the galleries. He creates them with oil paints on Masonite board, his preferred media since the late 1970s. Most are in the realistic style he learned early in his career as a student of the legendary art teacher Frank Reilly at the Art Students League in New York City. However, Ron’s newer paintings often have creative touches that are different from traditional illustration art.
“The personal works that fill this collection are simply astounding,” artist Joe Jusko wrote in his forward to THE ART OF RON LESSER, VOL. 2, “and it takes a lot to wow me after so many years in the business. Lesser has continued to grow and improve and challenge himself with extraordinary results…Whether it be Bettie Page, Marilyn Monroe, or any of the other actresses and starlets depicted herein, the recognition is immediate. His Bettie is sexy and sultry, his Marilyn is nothing short of alluring. He manages to capture the unique essence of every person he paints. His foray into the world of comic books, most notably Vampirella (no better subject for someone who loves painting sexy women, as I can attest) shows not only an affinity for the character, but a playful sense of humor, as well.”
“I love painting women,” Ron told me as we were putting his commentary together for the book. “I painted many sexy women for book covers. Hundreds of them. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, most were for detective and mystery novels. I also did do a lot of cover paintings with sexy women in the ‘80s and ‘90s for historical novels, thrillers, and romance novels. After my book cover markets were basically gone, I started doing paintings of sexy women for galleries and online art dealers. I try to keep my new faux cover paintings of dangerous dames simple,” Ron explained. “Sometimes there’ll be a mirror or a table or something like that, but only a few accessories, not too much. Basically, I am creating paperback cover paintings for books that don’t exist and I entertain myself by making up titles for them that are like old paperback titles. I enjoy doing that.”
Ron’s makes some of his newer paintings look very similar to paperback cover paintings he made back in the day. They are essentially, faux cover paintings. “In those cases, I try to make them look as much like a paperback cover painting as I can.” he told me. “But I also make some that are little stylistic, with pop art style backgrounds. Nowadays, I like trying to be creative with the backgrounds.”
As shown in VOLUME 2, Ron also created a series of faux vintage “true crime” detective magazine cover paintings, complete with text. “I had fun making up the titles of the articles,” he said. “The articles in the magazines are all supposedly based on real crimes. The titles are often over the top and hilarious and I did my best to create similar wild titles. My ‘True Crime’ calendar cover paintings were inspired by— but are not a recreation of—the old detective magazine covers. Women on the real vintage covers are not topless or seminude. I decided to choose the year 1943 as the period of time. That was at the height of World War Two, so I added a ‘Buy War Bonds’ sticker for added interest.”
Ron has also done paintings of characters from comics and movies in recent years, such as Vampirella and Red Sonja, and a series of paintings of Bettie Page.
“I have read some Vampirella comics to get to know the character,” Ron said. “And I’m a great admirer of the Vampirella covers Joe Jusko did for Dynamite Entertainment.”
“I didn’t do any paintings of Bettie Page until I started doing my more recent sexy girl paintings. Bettie was just an obvious choice. Some of the reference photos I’ve used for her are based on old photos of her, like the one of her on the beach [taken by Bunny Yeager in 1954].”
In recent years Lesser has also done many paintings of actresses he admires, dressed as the characters they play in movies. They include paintings of Halle Berry as Catwoman, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, Rosario Dawson as the character Gail in SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR, and Pamela Anderson as the character Barb Wire.
In addition, he has been doing new paintings of actresses from previous generations, such as Brigitte Bardot, Claudia Cardinale, Rita Hayworth, and Marilyn Monroe.
“I did my first painting of Marilyn Monroe in 2010 for the Chrysalis Gallery Southampton. It’s titled ‘Legend.’ That first one was almost pop art. I did other Marilyn Monroe paintings in several styles…I’ve sent many of my recent Marilyn Monroe paintings to the Animazing Gallery in Las Vegas, which has a focus on celebrity related artwork.”
“Most of my Marilyn paintings are based on historic photos of her. But many are from my own imagination, such as the painting Marilyn Monroe as the character Roxie Hart in the musical CHICAGO, which I made in 2024. Marilyn was never Roxie Hart on stage or in a movie. But one night as I was watching the movie CHICAGO I thought, wow, wouldn’t Marilyn Monroe have been great in Chicago? So I decided to make a painting of her as Roxie. Obviously, there’s no photograph of Marilyn Monroe as Roxie, so I had to make it up.”
Ron did many romance cover paintings for Harlequin and other publishers in past decades. That market is gone, but some of his new paintings are related to romance cover art. He calls them his “Romantic Fantasy” paintings and some of my favorite examples are included in THE ART OF RON LESSER, VOL. 2.
Bill Cunningham and I have been honored to work with Ron on THE ART OF RON LESSER book series and we’re already working on the next volume, which will focus on Ron’s Western and Civil War art and his manly action/adventure paperback cover art.
Ron’s output and talent as an artist continue to amaze me. Every couple of weeks, he emails me photos of his latest jaw-droppingly cool paintings. Below are a few examples that he’ ‘s sent me after we published VOLUME 2. They may show up in VOLUME 4.
If you’re interested in buying original art by Ron Lesser, it is currently available from several galleries and art site: The Animazing Gallery in Las Vegas (www.animazing.com), the Going to The Sun Gallery in Whitefish, Montana (www.goingtothesungallery.org), and via the online art sites The Illustrated Gallery (www.illustratedgallery.com), and Heritage Auctions (www.ha.com). I also recommend browsing Ron’s official website—www.artbyronlesser.com— maintained by his son David. It shows examples of many types of paintings he has done over decades and David often posts his latest paintings there before they get sent to a gallery.
Click the images below to buy a copy of Vol. 1 or Vol. 2 in THE ART OF RON LESSER series on Amazon. Or buy directly from me with free shipping in the US by clicking this link.
