Ernest (Darcy) Chiriacka (1913 - 2010)
Anastassios Kyriakakos was born in New York City on May 11, 1913. His parents were Greek immigrants, Portia and Herakles Kyriakakos. They came to America in 1907 from the mountain village Xero Cambi in the Sparta region of Greece.
Ernest Chiriacka is the transliterated English equivalent of Anastassios Kyriakakos. The familiar form of the name Anastassios is "Tassi," which sounds like the English name "Darcy."
In 1927, as an industrious teenager, he painted signs for local stores, and was hired to work at a professional sign painting shop.
In 1932 he studied drafting, lettering, and illustration at the Mechanics Institute on 20 West 44th Street, which is the city's oldest tuition-free evening school for college-level technical training.
He worked for two years at a display company and studied advanced illustration with Harvey Dunn at the Grand Central School of Art. He married his wife Katherine in 1937 and they moved to an apartment in Brooklyn.
In 1939 his first published story illustrations appeared in Street & Smith's pulp magazine Love Story.
He sold freelance pulp covers for Ace-High Western, Adventure, Big Book Western, Black Book Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, Dime Western, Exciting Detective, Fifteen Western Tales, 44. Western, G-Men Detective, New Detective, Phantom Detective, Rodeo Romances, Star Western, Sweetheart Stories, Ten Detective Aces, 10-Story Western, Texas Rangers, Thrilling Mystery, West, and Western Aces.
According to Harry Steeger, owner of Popular Publications, "I like Chiriacka's pulp covers, because when his women are screaming, they almost look like they might be laughing!"
His pulp covers were usually left unsigned, and he used a variety of psuedonyms, such as Acka, Darcy, and A.D. He is given printed credit as "Ernest Chiriacka" on the contents pages of only a few Ace Magazine titles.
He was not eligible for military service in WW2, because of a pre-diabetic health condition, so he was among the few professional pulp cover artists to remain fully active during the war years, and as such his work was in great demand.
In 1950 he joined the American Artists Agency and began a successful career as a slick magazine illustrator for American Magazine, Colliers, Coronet, Argosy, Saturday Evening Post, and Esquire, where his pin-up calendar art brought him his greatest renown.
He painted many paperback covers up until 1965, and then retired from commerical illustration to concentrate on painting visionary landscapes of the Old West, which have continued to attract appreciative collectors at fine art galleries around the world.
Ernest Darcy Chiriacka died at the age of ninety-six on April 26, 2010.
© David Saunders 2009
Tags: ernest chiriacka darcy pulp artist illustrator
© All Rights Reserved
Ernest Chiriacka - Guest of Honor
Windy City Pulp and Paperback Convention
April 23-25, 2005
Rosemont, Illinois
Tags: ernest chiriacka darcy pin-up collecting paperbacks callipygian
© All Rights Reserved
Scott and Sidney Meredith (editors) - The Best from Manhunt
Perma Books M-3111, 1958
Cover Artist: Ernest Chiriacka
13 of the toughest crime short stories ever written:
Evan Hunter - On the Sidewalk Bleeding
Richard Deming - Mugger Murder
Helen Nielsen - Decision
Fletcher Flora - The Collector Comes After Payday
Jack Ritchie - Try It My Way
Robert Turner - Movie Night
Erskine Caldwell - In Memory of Judith Courtright
Jonathan Lord - Day's Work
Jonathan Craig - The Scrapbook
Craig Rice - Quiet Day in the County Jail
Stanley L. Colbert - The Set-Up
Richard S. Prather - The Double Take
James E. Cronin - The Man Who Found the Money
Tags: Perma Books vintage paperback anthology crime darcy off the shoulder smoking gun
© All Rights Reserved
Curt Donovan - Witch with Blue Eyes
Beacon Books B504F, 1962
Cover Artist: Darcy
"A novel that takes you behind the doors of the new American phenomenon - the plush roadside motel."
Tags: beacon vintage paperback 60s sleaze darcy curt donovan witch with blue eyes ernest chiriacka
© All Rights Reserved
Peter Duncan - Sweet Cheat
Dell Books A182, 1959
Cover Artist: Darcy
"She was the nicest bad girl in town."
Tags: dell vintage paperback pulp fiction femme fatale ernest chiriacka
© All Rights Reserved