Frank Kelly Freas passed away at 4:46 this morning. He was under hospice care and with his wife, Laura, at their Los Angeles home. Kelly was an eleven time Hugo Award winning illustrator of cover and interior art for science fiction, fantasy, advertising, and MAD Magazine. Active in the science fiction field from 1950 until weeks before his death, Kelly illustrated stories by writers such as Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, A. E. Van Vogt, Poul Anderson, and Frederik Pohl.

Laura Freas & Frank Kelly Freas at ConQuesT 33 in 2002

A member of First Fandom and the Dorsai Irregulars, Kelly was an official NASA mission artist and his space posters hang in the Smithsonian. He was commissioned by the Skylab I astronauts to design their crew patch and did album and CD covers for Queen. In 2000 Kelly was elected a Fellow of the International Association of Astronomical Artists.

He painted beautiful women on the noses of World War II bombers, as well as portraits of five hundred saints for the Franciscans. He both wrote and illustrated the books The Astounding Fifties, Frank Kelly Freas: The art of Science Fiction, A Separate Star, and Frank Kelly Freas: As He Sees It.

A funeral will be held at 1PM on Monday, January 3 in the chapel at the Gates Kingsley & Gates Praiswater Mortuary, 6909 Canoga Ave, Canoga Park, CA. It will be followed by burial at Oakwood Memorial Park, 22601 Lassen St Chatsworth CA at 2 PM. An additional memorial service will be held from 11AM-1PM on Sunday, January 9 at Church of Scientology Celebrity Center and Manor Hotel, 5930 Franklin Avenue, Hollywood, CA.

Posted January 2, 2005 (updated 01/03)