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Hugh Doak Rankin, born Hugh Dearborn Copp (1878 - 1956) was an American artist who produced an extensive amount of illustrations for Weird Tales, particularly between 1927 and 1930. As such, he provided the original art for dozens of stories by H. P. Lovecraft, Frank Belknap Long, Robert E. Howard and others whose work formed the foundation of the Cthulhu Mythos.
Stories originally illustrated by Rankin include, but are not limited to, "The Call of Cthulhu", "The Curse of Yig", "The Dunwich Horror", "The Electric Executioner", "The Last Test", "Out of the Aeons", "Pickman's Model", "The Shadow Kingdom", "The Silver Key", Skull-Face, "The Space-Eaters", "Tarbis of the Lake", and "Two Black Bottles".
Biography[]
Hugh Copp was born in Loda, Illinois. His mother, Ellen Rankin Copp, was a celebrated sculptor, and Hugh followed her footsteps from an early age, drawing attention from the local newspapers for his sculptures while still 14. As a teenager, his mother took him to study art in Germany for a year.
In 1897, when Hugh was graduating from high school, the family became the target of far less desirable publicity, as Hugh's father attacked his wife's parents and sister and was arrested for attempted murder. As a result, young Hugh cut all ties with his father and changed his name to Hugh Doak Rankin.
The following year, Rankin and his mother moved to Indianapolis, where he started selling illustrations to newspapers. After the death of his mother and maternal grandfather, Rankin returned to Chicago to live with his maternal grandmother, aunt and uncle, and was employed as an artist by the same newspaper for which his uncle worked. Later in life, he moved to Los Angeles along with his aunt and uncle.