April 11, 1964: Duluth artist and writer Hans Bok dies, possibly of starvation

On this day in 1964, Duluth native Hans Bok, an artist and writer, died of a heart attack in his sleep, but his friends suspected that starvation played a role in his death. Bok was born Wayne Francis Woodard in Kansas City on July 2, 1914. He moved to Duluth with his father and stepmother in 1929. According to biographer David Ouse, Woodard graduated from Central in 1932 and was “inexplicably identified in the yearbook as Drake Woodward. Next to his yearbook picture is a quote from the Whittier narrative poem The Pennsylvania Pilgrim: ‘By his life alone, Gracious and sweet, the better way was shown.’” Ouse wrote that Bok would turn out to be a “difficult, obsessive, nearly friendless recluse who may have died of starvation. He is also considered to be one of the most talented science-fiction and fantasy illustrators of the twentieth century, and got his start in the business with the help of a young Ray Bradbury.” Thanks to Bradbury, Bok sold a painting to Farnsworth Wright, editor of Weird Tales magazine, who used it for the cover of the December, 1939 issue. It was Bok’s first big break. After Bok’s death, his friend Emil Petaja published a biography, And Flights of Angels: The Life and Legend of Hannes Bok (1968), and helped start the Bokanalia Foundation, which has published some of Bok’s poetry and portfolios of his art. Learn more about Bok in Ouse’s profile, here.

Self portrait of Hannes Bok, date unknown. (Image: Public Domain)