Album Cover Art: "... the final criteria of the success of an album cover [is] what will best sell the product"

Robert M. Jones, Art Director, RCA/Victor Records, writing in the November 1960 issue of American Artist:


The concept of album cover art is the responsibility of the art director and the A&R (artist and repetoire) man. When the A&R man has determined the content of the recording, the art director is called in for a discussion on the particular objective of the recording. He in turn must decide how the concept can best be realized, keeping in mind the relation of esthetics and sales potential.


Should the art be photographic, a painting or drawing, largely typographic, or a woodcut ort engraving?


The decision must be based on what will best sell the product, for this is the final criteria of the success of an album cover.


With this his prime consideration, the art director may make a series of thumbnail sketches to decide whether to commission a painter, illustrator, photographer, or graphic designer. If a painting, illustration, or graphic art is used, the artist will, in most cases, submit full-size colour sketches for approval before executing the finished art.



If the concept calls for a color photograph, the photographer may be shown the sketches, or he may just be given verbal instructions. Closely following a pre-conceived approach often results in an unconvincing and stilted picture which lacks spark and vitality, and the photographer often achieves better results when he is allowed creative latitude.


Finally the art work, whether painting or photography, is turned over to layout artists, mechanical men and typographers, working under the supervision of the art director, for completion.

* My Illustrated Album Covers Flickr set.

Album art: "employed to sell the most enriching and satisfying of all home entertainment."

Robert M. Jones, Art Director, RCA/Victor Records, writing in the November 1960 issue of American Artist:

The album cover demands the services of talented painters, designers, photographers, illustrators, graphic artists, sculptors and typographers.


They work in such varied media as oil, casein, gouache, tempera, drawing, collage, mosaic, cartoon, lithograph, sculpture, woodcut, engraving, and more than any other medium at the present time - the color photograph.


All of these art forms are employed to sell recorded music, the most enriching and satisfying of all home entertainment.



Visual art, like music, is a highly personal, creative process of the mind and spirit. Art used for album covers must assume the secondary, hard-working role of handmaiden to music. Whether treated editorially or as a poster...


... it must command attention.


To be successful the album cover must simultaneously accomplish three different objectives: it must interest, inform, and influence.

The first two "I's" are entirely dependent on the art concept and typography. While the art is an important factor when determining the third "I", the buyer's major interest is the recording artist and the repertoire reproduced. Most phonograph record purchases are calculated rather than purchased by impulse. The buyer of classical recordings generally has a higher level of taste and culture than the "pop" record enthusiast.


It follows naturally that the serious creative artist or photographer is allowed considerable more latitude when the product is directed to a discerning, sophisticated audience.


* Here's something rather exceptional: the Knuckles O'Toole album above is not only signed by illustrator Tracy Sugarman, but he receives a prominent credit line below his illustration. Even more exceptional, Sugarman gets a lavish write up on the back of the album as well -- something I've never come across before.


Jones may have rightly felt the artist and his work played a secondary role to the musician and repertoire, but in this case the artist was showcased in a manner most others could only dream about!

* My Illustrated Album Covers Flickr set.

Illustrated Album Covers: "The handmaiden to music"

I received a note from one reader last week who said he very much enjoyed Sheilah Beckett's work - especially the Gilbert & Sullivan album cover art presented on the Monday. "Have you thought of devoting a couple of weeks to album cover art?" he asked. As it happens, I have presented quite a bit of album cover art over the last few years, but his note got me thinking about the subject once more. I dug out an article I recalled seeing in the November 1960 issue of American Artist magazine and, lo and behold, it contained (among many other things) another wonderful example of Sheilah Beckett's artwork!


The article begins...

A consistently exciting and esthetically rewarding marriage between American art and industry flourishes in the phonograph record industry. This country has been the leader in making an artistic success as well as a potent selling tool of what originated as a mere protective package for recordings.


I would add that it also provided illustrators searching for replacement markets for the waning magazine illustration industry with a new source of income. The timing of this article at the end of 1960 fits perfectly with what was a troubling period in the history of our industry - something Sheilah confirmed once again only last week.


The article continues...

Album cover art must be primarily in the poster tradition. Artists and photographers are commissioned to interpret and visually sell all of the varied forms of music. They must translate for the eye and impress upon the consumer the glamor, beauty and excitement of the opera house, the Broadway theatre, the concert and dance hall, the nightclub, and the motion picture.


Robert M. Jones, art director at RCA/Victor was the author of this article so I imagine he spoke with some authority on the subject. Jones wrote, "I believe no industry in the United States offers a wider range of expression and artistic technique than the approximately 300 recording companies. Annually they produce between 7,500 and 8,000 different recordings, all of which require artwork for their packaging."


This week we'll take a look at some of that artwork. Artwork that Jones described as taking on "the secondary, hard-working role of handmaiden to music."

* My Illustrated Album Covers Flickr set.

* Many thanks to Ken Steacy for the gift of the Ice Station Zebra album! Ken points out that only the front cover is by Howard Terpning. The back cover was painted by Robert McCall.

Sheilah Beckett: A Fairy Tale Career

Last year there was a show at the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore, Maryland called "Golden Legacy, 65 Years of Golden Books". Some of Sheilah Beckett's originals were included in the show. As well, a title card provided a glimpse into the life and motivation of the artist. It read in part...

"Ms. Beckett ... vividly remembered a fairy tale book from [her childhood] with a beautiful illustration of a prince and princess. She wrote, "It would be lovely if some child remembered an illustration of mine as vividly and with as much love. I always think of small persons studying each detail of a picture as I work, so I try to put plenty in to be discovered."


I had really only been aware of Sheilah Beckett as one of the many talented advertising illustrators who worked at the Charle E. Cooper studio during the '40s and '50s... but advertising, paperbacks, record albums and all the rest had only been a sidebar for the artist. The one constant of Sheilah Beckett's varied career was her tremendous love for creating fairy tale pictures and children's stories.



Early on in our conversation Sheilah had talked about how when she first considered approaching Chuck Cooper about a job she knew "Coopers was a men's studio." I asked her if being a woman had carried any negative connotation for her professionally at the time - either for clients or among her peers. She assured me it did not. "I didn't have that feeling," she said.


Speaking specifically about her storybook work she said, "Publishers didn't care if [the artist] was a man or a woman." But she qualified her thought and added, "I don't think the prices for storybook work would keep a man very well though. I had to do an awful lot of books to make a living."


Sheilah explained, "When you do children's books, they'll give you a very small amount... but then they always say, "but you'll get royalties." But the thing is, a lot of these books will be displayed on a spinner rack. And they always need space on that rack for new books. Usually your books would get taken off the rack every two years, so the royalties never really got going."


If there is an up-side to this dilemma it is that we have had the benefit of enjoying Sheilah Beckett's tremendous output over the many years of her career. The blog Love for Books lists a few of the 70 books Sheilah has illustrated and shows several more examples of her artwork.

And she shows no signs of stopping any time soon! With the help of her son, Sean Smith, Sheilah has even ventured into the field of print-on-demand self publishing. Her book, The Six Wives of Henry the VIII is available in hard or softcover at Xlibris.com

Below, a real treat: pencil sketches and finished art from Archibald, a children's book in search of a publisher, written and illustrated by Sheilah Beckett.



Sean tells me, "Archibald has been around for awhile, she started it around 10 years ago. It went to some publishers and one of the comments was the story was too moral. I'm trying to get the right people to see this work as I think it would be a very good story for our times."


"The work was done traditionally, before my mother got into the computer."


Yes, believe it or not, for the last four or five years, Sheilah Beckett has been illustrating in Photoshop with a Wacom Tablet!

As we discuss illustrating with the aid of 21st century graphics technology, I have to pause and ask again, "Sheilah, how old are you... 96?" ... and she quickly corrects me with emphasis, "Ninety-seven!" I tell her, "Wow! I am just so incredibly impressed and inspired by you!"

"Well," says the remarkable Sheilah Beckett, matter-of-factly, "its my life and I love it."

"Its exciting all the time!"

* Sheilah's son Sean asked me to let readers know that he has limited edition prints by Sheilah Beckett available for sale. Anyone interested in purchasing prints can contact him through his website for further details.

* Sean has also set up a Facebook Fan Page, The Art of Sheilah Beckett where you'll be able to see many more examples of Sheilah's work. Become a fan!

* My Sheilah Beckett Flickr set.

Greetings from Sheilah Beckett

Sheilah Beckett recalls, "When television came along... that really made things difficult, you know. There wasn't as much illustration - even in advertising."

Like many other illustrators, Sheilah had to find clients outside the traditional magazine and advertising industries. We looked recently at the emerging market in paperback cover art during the 1950s...


... here are a few examples of paperbacks illustrated by Sheilah.


Paperback covers weren't exactly a rare thing for the artist but, like album cover art (see Monday's post), they also weren't a major component of her various commissions.

By contrast, one of Sheilah's long-running clients was American Artist Group greeting cards.


"The change in magazines [around 1960, due to television and photography] didn't effect the market for children's books and it didn't affect greeting cards," Sheilah explains.


"Everything was freelance... but American Artists went on for years and years..."


"... until the price of stamps went up so much. That destroyed that business."


When I told Sheilah I had been completely unaware of that aspect of her career she replied with a chuckle, "I've done murals too! I've done five hospital murals, one community center, and a church."

"What I do is, my son sets up a four by eight foot panel, and then I paint the panels and then they put them together. One really huge one at a hospital I worked on for two years! (Only going once a week though) But that was on the wall... that was kind of fun!"

When I express my amazement at her accomplishment and say, "Wow! So you were like Michaelangelo!" Sheila has a good laugh and corrects me:


"On the wall - not on the ceiling," she says, with another chuckle.

* My Sheilah Beckett Flickr set.

* Sheilah's son Sean has just set up a Facebook Fan Page, The Art of Sheilah Beckett where you'll be able to see many more examples of Sheilah's work. Become a fan!

* Many thanks to Flickr member Pop Kulture for allowing me to use his paperback cover scan near the top of this post.

Sheilah Beckett's Coronet

Sheilah's husband, J Frederick Smith, was also an illustrator during the '40s and '50s (an example of JFS' artwork below).



Smith had a good client in Esquire magazine publisher, Dave Smart. Sheilah explains that this relationship resulted in her getting the opportunity to do a cover for Esquire. "And Esquire and Coronet were connected - they were from the same publisher - and the art director at Coronet saw my work and began giving me assignments."


Based on the date of the cover above (1948) this was during a time when Sheilah and Fred were both at Cooper's.


"We were living in the center of Manhattan and I would put the baby and the artwork in the buggy and walk it over to the studio," she recalls with a chuckle.


But around 1950 - '51 the couple decided to move out of town to the countryside.


They didn't move to the artist's mecca of Westport, where so many of that era's big name illustrators lived and would have been handy to socialize with, but even so, "[fellow Cooper studio artists] Joe Bowler was near, Joe DeMers was near, and Coby Whitmore and his family were here for years and we saw them constantly."


Sheilah says, "Oh, I always wished we could be in Westport, only because I had so many illustrator friends there. We didn't have many illustrator friends where we were... they were hard to find." She chuckles again.


If Sheilah's work up until this point in her career isn't already lovely enough, its clear that during the early-to-mid-'50s she really began to establish her style.


You can begin to see it formulating in these examples from the December 1953 issue of Coronet.


Sheilah says she always loved drawing children's books and fairy tales and its evident in these examples that she was meant to do work of that type.


Her clean, appealing style and sense of whimsy is perfectly suited for that sort of subject matter.


I asked if she was looking at the work of any other children's book illustrators of the time for inspiration - like the popular Golden Books artists of the '50s, Art Seiden, the Provensens, etc. - but Sheilah replies, "Not too much because I work so very differently." I think it shows in her work. Sheilah only recalls doing a couple of assignments for Golden Books... most of her projects came from other publishers.


"It wasn't dependable," she emphasizes, "but you know, I kept busy all the time."

* My Sheilah Beckett Flickr set.

* Sheilah's son Sean has just set up a Facebook Fan Page, The Art of Sheilah Beckett where you'll be able to see many more examples of Sheilah's work. Become a fan!

* Many thanks to Flickr member Pennelainer for allowing me to use her Coronet cover scans near the top of this post!