Boris was born in Lima,Peru as the son of a solicitor. At the age of 14 he studied art at "Escue Nacional de Bellas Artes" in his native country where he recieved a five year scholarship.Boris left Lima unable to speak English with only a few dollars to his name and his portfolio to the United States in 1964. He worked in New York as an illustrator in the advertising department of a chain store. After eight years he left to go it alone and did a variety of work from book covers to fashion designs.

He has since done a great volume of work for the Fantasy field, combining his love of the human form and his brilliant imagination. He has worked for virtually every major publishing house with a science fiction/fantasy line. Along with his numerous paintings, he has worked on over 300 book covers for writers such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Lin Carter, and Fredrick Pohl; along with such works as Doc Savage, Conan, and Tarzan. Boris has also illustrated for album covers, video box art and motion picture advertising. Boris has published several books, such as The Fantastic Art of Boris Vallejo and Boris Vallejo Fantasy Art Techniques.

"His mastery of oil painting is immediately and abundantly clear to anyone who looks at his work, and his classic sense is as much an homage to the old masters as it is to anyone contemporaneously working in the Fantasy genre. For sheer dauntless bravura, few have ever pushed the limits as does Boris with his beautiful maidens and fearsome monsters."






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