The Missing Blanches: Three Lost John Blanche Originals Come Out of the Dark
John Blanche would have turned 78 today. He died on 1 June 2026, and in the months since, the hobby world has been doing what it does when a giant falls: looking back through the books, the White Dwarf covers, the codexes and the box art, and realising how much of what we love he shaped.
But there is a part of his work that almost nobody has seen. Alongside the famous Games Workshop art, Blanche made personal, finished paintings: small, intense, strange, and painted for no brief but his own. Many of them went straight into private hands and stayed there. They are, in the most literal sense, missing from the public record.
Today we are starting a four-part series about three of them, with an epilogue on the search for the rest. If you missed our prologue on the man himself, start with The Hand Behind the Grimdark.
Three paintings from a set of 24
Hammer of War holds three original paintings by John Blanche. Each was offered to us as part of a numbered set of 24: Starseer as No. 4, Asceline as No. 8, and Lass is Sophia as No. 9. All three are reproduced in his authorised biography, Blanche: The Rise of Grimdark (Wombat Wargames, 2023), the book Blanche himself approved page by page. Before that, as far as we can tell, they had not been published at all.
They came to us in January 2024 from a private collector in England who had kept them in his personal collection and who, in his words, was pleased they were going to someone who would treasure them as he had. They crossed the Atlantic in a single parcel and have been in our care in Washington State ever since.
That leaves 21 paintings from the same set unaccounted for. Where are they? Who owns them? Were they ever exhibited? We do not know yet, and part of the purpose of this series is to find out.
What this series will cover
- Part two: Asceline. A colossal head on an industrial tower at sea, crowned with antennae, and an early vision of the human mind turned into a machine.
- Part three: Starseer. Five panels, one strange world: colossal beasts, helmeted aliens and a storm called down from the sky.
- Part four: Lass is Sophia. A red-haired woman before a broken window, and a clear look at the auction market for Blanche originals.
- Epilogue: The Other Twenty-One. What we know about the rest of the set, and how we are searching for it.
Each post is a close study: high resolution detail photography, what the painting shows, how it was made, where it fits in Blanche's development, and its documented origin. We are also being open about condition, because honest documentation is how works like these earn their place at auction.
Why now
With Blanche's death, the body of his work is complete. In the year around it, his original art has moved into a different league: his first Warhammer cover was offered at Christie's in London in December 2025 with an estimate of £300,000 to £400,000. Personal paintings like these are rarer still, and every one that surfaces adds to our understanding of the man behind the grimdark.
Our goal is to place all three with a major auction house, with a provenance record as strong as we can make it. This series is the first chapter of that record, written in public.
Help us find the other 21
If you own a numbered Blanche original from this set, saw these paintings exhibited, worked with John, or simply remember them, we would love to hear from you. Every recollection becomes part of the story these works carry.
Subscribe to the Hammer of War blog so you do not miss a part. Asceline is up next.