Friday, June 01, 2012

Album Covers by Famous Illustrators

Yesterday I talked about how many illustrators dabbled in album cover art.

Over thelast few years I'v sifting through many record bins at thrift shops and flea markets. I've come across many great record jackets and been pleasantly surprised to discover the signature of some illustrator I'm familiar with. Here are few from my collection...

Saturday Evening Post cover artist, Constantin Alajalov

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Jan Balet, illustrator of several children's books and countless magazine articles and covers.

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Magazine illustrator Lorraine Fox. (I've been wanting to write about Lorraine Fox for a very long time but never had any good information about her. Thanks to Matt Dicke that changed recently, so Fox will be featured on TI some time very soon.)

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Bob Jones, illustrator of many magazine stories, paperbacks and greeting cards, Mad magazine cover artist and creator of the Esso Tiger mascot. When I asked Bob about this album cover he had absolutely no memory of ever doing it. He told me, "If I didn't see my signature in the corner I wouldn't believe this was my work!"

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Sheilah Beckett - whom Bob Jones felt he was hired to replace at the Charles E. Cooper studio in the 1950s after Sheilah moved on.

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Pete Hawley, famous for his delicious Jantzen swimsuit ad ladies - and then later for countless super cute kiddies for American Greeting Cards.

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Al Parker (need I say more?)

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Something you're not likely to see every day: an album cover by Robert Weaver! I was pretty surprised when I found this for a quarter at a local flea market.

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Don Weller One of my most recent finds.

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I asked Greg Newbold, who knows Don personally, to ask him about his album cover art. Greg graciously did so - and you can read Don's remarks at Greg's blog

4 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for this focus on album covers - I collect record albums and I've always admired a lot of the art on them and wanted to know about the artists. Album covers seemed an area (like book covers) where artists seemed to have wider discretion in what they created and produced work that was more "art" than straight "illustration", many so beautiful I want to frame them. Thanks for more fantastic inspiration!

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  2. Thanks so much, David!

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  3. You're very welcome, Gaabi -- I really appreciate you letting me know :^)

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