“Murilo saw that the barbarian had locked his legs about the ape-man’s torso and was striving to maintain his position on the monster’s back while he butchered it with his poniard. Thak, on the other hand, was striving to dislodge his clinging foe, to drag him around within reach of the giant fangs that gaped for his flesh.” —from “Rogues in the House” by Robert E. Howard
This Friday, September 12, 2025, Frank Frazetta’s iconic cover for the collection Conan, published by Lancer Books in 1967, will go on the block at Heritage Auctions.
Frank was paid something around $400 to do the art, one of 9 classic Conan oil paintings he produced for Lancer’s 12-book Conan series; 8 were published in the United States, but Lancer went bankrupt and out of business before the ninth, Conan of Aquilonia, could be distributed (though printed samples are known to exist). Sphere Books, the British licensor, published the art for their edition from a transparency they’d been provided, but Frazetta’s original was stolen while Lancer was closing its New York office and it hasn’t been seen since 1973.
Frank and his wife Ellie kept all of the other Conan originals and displayed them side-by-side in a gallery that she had built adjacent to their house in East Stroudsburg, PA, her third and final museum.
Following Ellie’s death from cancer on July 17, 2009, an LLC—Frazetta Properties—was created to manage the family’s business affairs. Shortly after the formation of the LLC Frank sold the cover painting for Conan the Conqueror for $1m.
Above: My photo of the Frazetta museum while it was being built.
Above: The Frazetta Museum while Ellie was alive.
Sadly, things got really messy on December 9, 2009 after the Frazettas’ oldest son and two accomplices broke into the gallery while his father was in Florida, tearing the locked gates off and knocking open the doors with a backhoe; he was busy loading paintings into an SUV and trailer when he was stopped and arrested by a State Trooper, who was responding to the museum’s burglar alarm. His stated motive and justification for his actions were disputed by his father—”Don’t you believe anything he tells you. He’s full of beans,” Frank said in an interview with The Pocono Record—who filed a civil suit against his son on top of the county’s criminal charges of theft, burglary, and trespass. Anger, accusations, and general unhappiness ensued as vocal fan supporters and detractors lined up on both sides. At the prosecutor’s urging, lawyers were brought in to help create order out of the chaos and in April, 2010 the family reached an agreement to drop the criminal charges and the civil complaint and achieved peace (at least in public). Around this same time the family settled a lawsuit Ellie had filed in 2008 against the small publisher of a Frazetta bibliography; that would ultimately lead to other problems in the years ahead, unfortunately. Less than a month later Frank died from a stroke in Florida on May 10, 2010.
Above: An unidentified security guard stationed on the property after the break-in in this photo from a story in The Pocono Record.
Following Frank’s death the family sold his reworked cover for Conan the Buccaneer (which Ellie had retitled “Destroyer” for her poster sales) for $1.5m to pay for the estate’s complicated legal expenses. All of the artwork—and publishing rights to same—were divided equally between the Frazettas’ four children, Alphonso aka Frank Jr., Bill, Holly, and Heidi, per his wishes. Over the years, all of the kids, without exception, have sold originals in their collections at auction and through direct sales, including Conan covers: the paintings for Conan the Adventurer, Conan of Cimmeria, and Conan the Usurper (and possibly the reworked Conan the Avenger, but I’m a little murky on its whereabouts) all now reside in private collections. The last I knew Conan the Warrior was still in Frank Jr.’s collection and Holly still owns Conan, at least for a few more days…
Above: What’s causing that red highlight along Conan’s side? Who the hell cares? Logical or not, “right” or not, it works!!!
Frank Frazetta already holds the record for the highest prices realized for works of fantasy art at auction—$8.75m for Conan the Adventurer and $6m for the cover to Dark Crusade—and, now this visceral, cathartic, painting for Conan is shooting for a new world record. Will it sell to a Tech Bro, a Hollywood collector, a hedge fund manager, or (fingers crossed) a museum? We’ll see.
In the meantime, Frank and Ellie’s granddaughter, Sara, has posted an enlightening and thoroughly entertaining video about the history of selling and collecting Frazetta art and shares her grandmother’s plans for the artwork. Have a look.
Wow! The Frazetta story is just so depressing.
Some good hearts, but equally as many malicious ones.
May Frank rest in peace.
It definitely is a complicated story for sure, much more than anyone might guess. Eventually it’ll get told.
I don’t understand why people have so many children, and don’t settle matters like this while they are still alive and mentally capable. Especially wealthy people.
If you watch Sara’s video you’ll hear that Ellie had a plan, or at least said she did (I was present when she talked about it). Was she serious? I don’t know. As I said to Nico, it’s a complicated—and often contradictory and frustrating—story.