Thomas Ray Funderburk was born on November 8, 1928, in Hammond, Indiana. He served in the Marine Corps from 1946 to 1948 and graduated from Indiana University in 1952. Funderburk was assistant art director for Bantam Books from 1961 to 1966, when he went off on his own as a freelance artist, writer, and designer. He wrote two well-regarded books on airplanes, The Fighters: The Men and Machines of the First Air War (1965) and The Early Birds of War: The Daring Pilots and Fighter Aeroplanes of World War I (1968). Funderburk also illustrated several books, including Stormy Voyager: The Story of Charles Wilkes by Robert Silverberg (1968), The Nature of Animals by Lorus and Margery Milne (1969), and Whales: A First Book by Helen Hoke and Valerie Pitt (1981). Funderburk died on December 30, 1999, at age seventy-one.
 |
Thomas Funderburk (left) from his days at Indiana University, from The Arbutus.
|
 |
| The Nature of Animals by Lorus and Margery Milne (1969), illustrated by Thomas R. Funderburk. |
 |
| Funderburk's own Early Birds of War from 1968. |
Updated December 6, 2019.
Text and captions copyright 2011, 2024 Terence E. Hanley
I read Funderburk's "The Fighters" as a boy of 13. Now, at 62, I have just re-read it. Lovely book, simply and eloquently written.
ReplyDelete