Portrait of Virgil Finlay

Birthday profile

Virgil Finlay

Virgil Finlay, American illustrator (died 1971)

Born
July 23, 1914
Died
January 18, 1971
Zodiac sign
Leo
Birth year
1914

About Virgil Finlay

Virgil Finlay was an American pulp fantasy, science fiction and horror illustrator. He has been called "part of the pulp magazine history... one of the foremost contributors of original and imaginative art work for the most memorable science fiction and fantasy publications of our time." While he worked in a range of media, from gouache to oils, Finlay specialized in, and became famous for, detailed pen-and-ink drawings accomplished with abundant stippling, cross-hatching, and scratchboard techniques. Despite the very labor-intensive and time-consuming nature of his specialty, Finlay created more than 2600 works of graphic art in his 35-year career. Roads, a fantasy novella by Seabury Quinn, first published in the January 1938 Weird Tales, and featuring a cover and interior illustrations by Finlay, was published in a very limited edition by Arkham House in 1948. He also created 19 color covers for Weird Tales numbers from February 1937 to March 1953.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Virgil Finlay timeline

  1. He also created 19 color covers for Weird Tales numbers from February 1937 to March 1953.
  2. Roads, a fantasy novella by Seabury Quinn, first published in the January 1938 Weird Tales, and featuring a cover and interior illustrations by Finlay, was published in a very limited edition by Arkham House in 1948.

The world when Virgil Finlay was born

Virgil Finlay was born in 1914. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1914

  • Best-selling book"The Eyes of the World" – Harold Bell Wright

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports moment"Miracle Braves" complete greatest comeback in baseball history
  • Top headlineWorld War I begins — Archduke Franz Ferdinand assassinated
  • Technology milestonePanama Canal opens
  • World population~1.74B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderWoodrow Wilson
  • U.S. population97.2M

1914 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Virgil Finlay's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19142026
Population97.2M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.