Stephen Youll

About Stephen Youll

Stephen Youll (born 8 June 1965) is a British science fiction and fantasy cover artist from Hartlepool, County Durham, best known for his 1990s covers for Isaac Asimov's Foundation, Robot and Empire novels and for the American editions of Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders trilogy.

Youll and his identical twin, Paul Youll, studied at New College Durham and Sunderland University and first worked as historical reconstruction artists at Durham Cathedral. Their joint work was shown at the 1987 World Science Fiction Convention in Brighton, and their first commission was the cover of Daniel Keys Moran's Emerald Eyes for Bantam. The partnership ended in 1989, when Stephen married Jamie Warren, an art director at Bantam, and moved to the United States. Working alone he painted covers for Bantam, Ballantine/Del Rey, Warner and Avon, for authors including Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Silverberg, Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert. He began in acrylics and later moved to oils. He was a Guest of Honour at the 2001 World Science Fiction Convention in Philadelphia, has received several Chesley Award nominations and has judged the Illustrators of the Future contest since 2005. A collection of his art, Paradox: The Art of Stephen Youll, was published by Paper Tiger in 2001.

For collectors

His covers are on the US Bantam Spectra first editions of Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders novels: Ship of Magic (1998), Mad Ship (April 1999) and Ship of Destiny (2000). The British Voyager first editions carry John Howe's art instead.