The Art of Darkness - The Night Gallery

I have been meaning to post this for days, now, but I've been too busy. And forgetful. What are you gonna do? This is life these days.

Anyhow, the guys over at Creature Features got a nifty project together on Kickstarter a while back. A book of the wondrous and weird! The paintings from Rod Serling's Night Gallery! Yaaaas!

And I got one. In a slick, leather slipcase. Because I deserve it! And? It's amazing! Beautifully curated, with explanations and history, galore! Anyone who is a Night Gallery aficionado will be proud to own one of these.

This is a big deal, folks! Having a compilation of both sculptures and paintings seen in the series in one book is the result of literally decades of sleuthing and hard work. One can imagine that just gathering the appropriate permissions and clearances from NBC Universal for use of the photos and all the artwork, would have been a daunting challenge.

Finding the paintings, themselves, was a major miracle, not least because we only have most of them because of some intrepid dumpster-diving on the Universal lot after the show ended and the studio was clearing out the sound stages to make room for whatever show was coming in.

It looks like there are still some books available at various tiers, so you might want to pop over to the Art of Darkness Kickstarter page to see if you can still run off with one of these beauties!

Night Gallery at Creature Features

Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen, to the Night Gallery! A place where the chill in the air has less to do with temperature, and more to do with the infernal pieces of art on display...

"Lone Survivor"

"She'll Be Company
For You"

Burbank's own Creature Features has done something truly wonderful in gathering a spine-tingling selection of the original paintings from Rod Serling's Night Gallery, a show which is open to the public until March 31.


Painted by Jaroslav “Jerry” Gebr and Tom Wright, the paintings were a staple of the show, allowing Serling, with his trademark voice and diction, to introduce each tale of supernatural horror to his viewers. (You can get more history on Night Gallery here.)


Tom Wright, himself, was in attendance, a thin, stylish man with a quick wit and a ready smile for the fans who cornered him to sign their prints. He's gone on to become a director, mostly in television, since he did his time in the Night Gallery, with Castle and Supernatural among his credits.

"Pamela's Voice"

"Spectre in Tap
Shoes"

I remember that as a kid they fascinated me, so being in the same room with them was truly an awe-inspiring event. I could have stood most of the night, studying the brush strokes and drinking them in, but the show was a smashing success, and with that came the droves of fans. To be polite, I couldn't just stand there and block everything!


Those paintings were amazing, in large part because Tom Wright (who painted the lion's share of them) made a decision to paint each of them in completely different styles, so they'd appear to the viewer to be by different artists, as they would be if they were hung in a gallery setting. This one decision gave Night Gallery a layer of reality and believability it may not have had, otherwise.


It made me nostalgic for the days when studios seemed to be willing to go that extra mile, to pay a little extra money for that special touch to give the viewer a more intense experience with a story.

Untitled for an unproduced episode

I hope that if you're in the Burbank, California area in the next week or so, you take the time to go see this once-in-a-lifetime display of paintings!

"The Cemetery"