Greg Hildebrandt – RIP
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Fantasy artist Greg Hildebrandt has passed away.
Gregory J. (Greg) Hildebrandt
January 23, 1939 – October 31, 2024
Greg’s wife Jean Scrocco posted to social media about her husband’s passing:
The light has gone out in my life. At 12:36 pm this afternoon the love of my life, my best friend and soulmate passed away. Greg was 85 years young. He was the sweetest man I ever knew. We worked together for 45 years. We lived together for 33 of those years. We had a beautiful life we were blessed. Greg has been fighting for 5 months to regain his ability to breathe after a serious side effect of a heart medication. He fought very hard to win this battle but in the end he was just too weak. He passed away peacefully in my arms. He knew he was safe and he was loved and he will be missed terribly.
Greg partnered with his twin brother Tim to form the famous art team known as The Brothers Hildebrandt, probably most famously known for their work on The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars.
Edited on November 5 to add from the family/funeral home obituary:
Primarily a self-taught and multidisciplinary artist, Greg began his professional career in the arts, working at the Jam Handy Organization, an industrial film corporation located in Detroit, Michigan. There, he animated training films for the auto industry and the military, ultimately winning the coveted Golden Eagle award for a movie he worked on titled “Technique for Life.”
In 1963, Greg moved to New York to work for The Propagation of the Faith, under Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, for whom he began making documentary films chronicling world hunger and creating art for his weekly television series “Life is Worth Living.”
The Hildebrandt’s first gained international prominence with their heralded 1976, 1977, and 1978 calendars, published by Ballantine Books, depicting JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Their follow-up painting, the 1976 “Style B” movie poster for the theatrical release of Star Wars, is one of the most instantly recognizable paintings in modern history.
fter making a name for himself as one half of the Brothers Hildebrandt, Greg began pursuing his solo career in the early 1980s. As the cornerstone artist, Greg helped launch Unicorn Publishing. For Unicorn, Greg illustrated a series of literary classics considered some of his greatest works of art. His illustrated editions, including Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz, and Alice in Wonderland, are considered classics … The New York Times said, “Fortunate the child or adult who receives a gift of classics richly illustrated by Greg Hildebrandt.”
After more than a decade of working independently, Greg rejoined his brother Tim to create once again. This time, the brothers took their talents to Marvel Comics, creating the now iconic 1994 Marvel Masterpieces Trading Card set, an epic 158 – card set depicting the greatest heroes and villains of the Marvel Universe. The brothers continued working together until Tim’s passing in 2006.
The Internet Speculative Fiction Database has an index of Greg’s voluminous fantasy art.
The Grand Comics Database has an index of Greg’s comic book work, mostly covers and mostly Marvel.
In these parts, while certainly aware of his art career, Greg and Tim are most famously renowned for the highly anticipated revival in 1995 of Terry and the Pirates.
The Brothers Hildebrandt left the adventure strip after a year and the strip itself lasted another 16 months.
Greg’s The Spiderwebart Gallery has over 100 of the Hildebrandt’s Terry and the Pirates original art for sale.
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