🖌️🎨 George Underwood (born 1947) is a British artist who paints in the style of fantastic realism.

In 1963, he entered Beckenham School of Art, where he developed an interest in music along with classmates David Bowie and Peter Frampton. Underwood and Bowie's complex did not last long due to an injury to Bowie's left eye caused by a ring on Underwood's finger during a fight over a girl, as a result of which Bowie's left pupil was paralyzed. But the injury did not affect their friendship, and Underwood continued to record with Bowie (in their group The King Bees), as well as a solo album under the name Calvin James.
Deciding that the world of music was not for him, Underwood returned to studying art and worked in design studios as an illustrator. Initially, he specialized in fantasy, horror and science fiction book covers, but many of his colleagues in the music business began asking him to do various pieces of art for them.
This led him to become a freelance artist. From there, Underwood established himself as an illustrator, creating album covers for artists such as Tyrannosaurus Rex (Futuristic Dragon), The Fixx (Phantoms, Reach for the Beach and Calm Animals), Procol Harum (Shine Bright), Mott the Hoople (All the Young Boys) and David Bowie (Hunky Dory and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars). During this period, he created hundreds of book covers, record and CD sleeves, advertisements, portraits and drawings.
In the early 1970s, the artist began painting in oils. His art was influenced by artists of the Viennese school of fantastic realism, such as Ernst Fuchs, Rudolf Hausner and Eric Brauer.
Imagination is the key word in George's paintings. Nowadays, he rarely uses live models, preferring to invent people who populate his personal world.

Source: wikipedia, creativeboom.com