Born in Detroit Michigan, Gene Szafran attended the Art School of the Society of Arts and Crafts there.  He worked as staff artist for several Detroit studios, preparing automobile ads as well as doing some freelance artwork.  He moved to New York City in 1967, where he was in great demand as a freelance artist.  He provided artwork for Playboy, Fortune, and a number of other magazines, as well as for numerous paperback covers.

His science fiction art was distinctive, mostly surrealistic and often using only one or two colors.  For a number of years Szafran placed high on many science fiction reader polls as best artist.  By the late 1970s health problems forced him from illustrating, just when he was at the peek of his popularity.

From A Biographical Dictionary of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists by Robert Weinberg