Old Missoula

The science fiction and fantasy author Emil Petaja (1915–2000) was lifelong friend of Bok and collector of his work. After Bok’s death, Petaja did as much as anyone to keep the artist’s work before the public eye.

Bok and Petaja first met in the summer of 1936. According to Petaja, Bok and his friend Harold Taves were hitch-hiking from Seattle to New York City when they stopped off in Montana, USA, to see the aspiring writer. At first correspondents, Bok and Petaja soon became close friends. The two had much in common – including an interest in fantasy fiction, the Kalevala (the Finnish verse epic), and the music of Sibelius.

Petaja’s first book, Brief Candle (1936), contained twelve poems by Petaja and twelve illustrations by Bok. Petaja printed this now rare chapbook by running-off copies on the mimeograph machines at Bozeman Campus, Montana State University, where he was a student in creative writing. According to Petaja, approximately 40 to 50 copies were printed with many “given to friends and well wishers.”

Bok and Petaja’s friendship continued in Los Angeles, where each had relocated in 1937. Throughout 1937 and 1938, Petaja and Bok shared an apartment, and together they attended fan meetings, haunted second-hand book and magazine shops, went to the movies, and helped each other with their poems and stories. They also immersed themselves in the primordial Los Angeles science fiction scene. Bok and Petaja befriended Ray Bradbury – then still a teenager – as well as Forrest J. Ackerman, Henry Kuttner and others.

In And Flights of Angels, Petaja recounts: “Perhaps when all is washed down over the dam, my major claim to fame will rest in the fact that it was I who got Hannes down to Los Angeles and I who dragged him, reluctantly, to the meetings of the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society. Where we met Ray Bradbury. . . . It was at Clifton’s Cafeteria on Broadway. We couldn’t afford to eat there, usually, but we took advantage of the free lime sherbet. In that fabled back room where so many of the s-f elite have sat around the long table chewing the fat, fanwize, Hannes first met Forrie Ackerman, Henry Kuttner, et al. But it was Ray Bradbury who took to Hannes instanter and proved to be such a rare and wonderful friend to him a little later on.”

“Besides introducing Hannes to Ray Bradbury, I take pride in the fact that this brief Los Angeles period of Bok’s life was one of the most productive of his life. He produced a dozen color paintings based on Peer Gynt, as samples to show book publishers what he could do. He painted “The Mermaid” and several Enchanted City themes. He wrote scads of poetry. All of which does indicate that, for all his beefs, he was happy then. He might lash out cruelly about this or that, but nobody I have known had as great a capacity for enjoying and sensating all there was around him.”

In 1967, three years after Bok’s death, Petaja founded the Bokanalia Memorial Foundation. The foundation was set up “with the help and encouragement of Harold Taves of Seattle and Ray Bradbury of Los Angeles and the Golden Gate Futurians of San Francisco . . . . The avowed intention of Bokanalia is simply to keep the great imaginative art of Hannes Bok from slipping into oblivion, and to make new (better than pulp) prints available to his many admirers all over the world”.

Between 1967 and 1970, Petaja published five portfolios of Bok’s art. Those portfolios include Variations on Bok Theme, (black & white portfolio, 1967); The Famous Power Series, (black & white portfolio, with text by Bok, 1969); and A Memorial Portfolio, (color portfolio, with booklet with text by Petaja, 1970). Petaja also authored a commemorative volume, And Flights of Angels: The Life and Legend of Hannes Bok (Bokanalia Memorial Foundation, 1968). Along with brief contributions from Roger Zelazny, Jack Gaughan,Donald Wollheim and others, And Flights of Angels contains Petaja’s long biographical essay on the artist, a checklist of Bok’s published artwork and writings, and reproductions of a substantial number of the artist’s drawings, prints and illustrations. Later, under the SISU imprint (and on behalf of the Bokanalia Foundation), Petaja published an illustrated volume of Bok’s poetry, Spinner of Silver and Thistle (1972), as well as editing The Hannes Bok Memorial Showcase of Fantasy Art (1974).

Much of the Bok material included in the portfolios and books published and authored by Petaja came from Petaja’s personal collection. Petaja owned at least a dozen paintings, as well as dozens of sketches, drawings, prints and three-dimensional objects. Among Petaja’s most beloved possessions was the first sketch Bok ever drew for him, a piece from 1936 called “Gleef,” which hung on the wall of Petaja’s San Francisco home. Petaja also collected examples of Bok’s published work – such as magazine covers, interior illustrations, dust jackets, book covers, and more. Additionally, Petaja amassed Bok manuscripts (both published and unpublished fiction and poetry), as well as letters, books, other printed matter and unique, one-of-a-kind objects.

Below is the obituary for Emil Theodore Petaja which appeared in The Missoulian on August 19, 2009.

SAN FRANCISCO – Emil Theodore Petaja, 85, died at his home in San Francisco on Thursday, Aug. 17, 2000. He was born April 12, 1915, in Milltown. He attended schools in Bonner and Missoula, leaving the university in the 1930s to pursue a career as an author in California.

His short stories were published in many of the science fiction magazines of the day, and he became a successful author of many science fiction books which have been published in several languages. He was especially happy that Reader’s Digest published a story he wrote in praise of Hazel Karkanen, a longtime supportive Milltown librarian.

Emil was the youngest of 10 children born to John and Hanna Petaja, who lived in Milltown.

He is survived by his sister, Senia Teague of Piltzville and numerous nieces and nephews.

Below is a link to a Jack Demmons photo of Petaja with some of his siblings:

http://mtmemory.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15018coll37/id/1188