Inspiration from Artists Week 132: Album Cover Art

Hi There When I was growing up my exposure to 'fine art' was limited to the paintings that adorned the corridors of my school and the art books in my library. Most of my artistic input mainly came from two sources; comics and record album covers. I always loved album covers - 33rpm vinyl record covers, and I took a great deal of inspiration perusing the album's sleeve notes and artwork while listening to the album.  I would like this thread to be an opportunity for you to post your favourite art from album covers and share it with the forum.  After my intro, please feel free to dig out your favourites and post them. Please give credit to the band or musical artiste as well as the artist that created the artwork for the album sleeve if you can find out who it is.   To start things off I've selected a few important album covers. They are important to me, maybe not the wider world, but I hope you enjoy them. I've sourced a lot of information from Wikipedia, so thanks to them for helping out. 1. It's a Beautiful Day by It's a Beautiful Day. This was designed by George Hunter and painted by Kent Hollister, and was based on the 1912 painting Woman on the Top of a Mountain by Charles Courtney Curran. The album cover is number 24 on Rolling Stone's list of 100 greatest album covers. 2. Aqualung by Jethro Tull.  The album's original cover art by Burton Silverman features a watercolour portrait of a long-haired, bearded man in shabby clothes. The idea for the cover apparently came from a photograph lead singer Ian Anderson's wife took of a homeless man on the Thames Embankment.  The artwork was commissioned and purchased by Chrysalis Records head Terry Ellis in 1971, but there was apparently no written contract so Silverman was only paid a relatively small amount.  The gatefold sleeve contained another of Silverman's paintings showing the whole band: 3. Selling England By The Pound by Genesis The album cover is a painting by Betty Swanwick titled The Dream. The original painting did not include a lawn mower; the band had Swanwick add it later as an allusion to the track "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" because Swanwick told them she did not have enough time to paint a new picture for the cover.  4. The Original Soundtrack by 10cc. The artwork was designed by Hipgnosis and beautifully illustrated by artist Humphrey Ocean. Ocean's earliest notable work as an artist was as a designer and pencil-artist for record album covers and sleeves. There's an interesting documentary about the company Hipgnosis on Netfilx including an interview with Ocean. 5. Tarkus by Emerson Lake and Palmer (ELP) The album was packaged in a gatefold sleeve and features artwork by Scottish artist William Neal. To me this album cover epitomises the Sci-Fi influenced nature of 1970's progressive rock, and while John Peel famously described ELP as a "waste of electricity", I really loved them.  6. Brain Salad Surgery  also by  ELP HR Giger (pronounced GEEGER) (5 February 1940 – 12 May 2014) was a Swiss artist best known for his airbrushed images that blended human physiques with machines, an art style known as "biomechanical". He was part of the special effects team that won an Academy Award for the visual design of Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi horror film Alien, and was responsible for creating the Alien creature itself.  This was a terrific fold out album sleeve which had a circular cutout which partially revealed an inner painting.  7. Tales From Topographic Oceans by Yes  Painted by Roger Dean. I know we've covered Roger Dean in the inspiration thread, but I need to include this one as it adorned my bedroom wall as a teenager after I saw Yes at the Finsbury Park Rainbow back in 1973.  8. Novella by Renaissance Painted by Pamela Brown. I have no further info on this wonderful design. 9. Never for Ever by Kate Bush Designed and painted by Nick Price. I needed to include a bit of Kate as I've loved her work most of my adult life. This is probably the most 'arty' design that doesn't use photographs. 10. Captain Fantastic by  Elton John The intricate cover art was designed by pop artist Alan Aldridge.  11. Face Dances  by The Who The album cover features 16 paintings of the band members by 16 British painters, who were commissioned by Peter Blake. Artists include Tom Phillips, Richard Hamilton, Allen Jones, David Hockney, Clive Barker, R. B. Kitaj, Howard Hodgkin, Patrick Caulfield, David Inshaw, Mike Andrews, Joe Tilson, Patrick Procktor, David Tindle and Blake himself. 12. Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd Has to be included as one of the most iconic album designs ever it was produced by the company Hipgnosis and the artist was George Hardie. 13. God Shuffled His Feet by Crash Test Dummies. If you want an example of album covers inspiring you to look at fine art, look no further than the mash-up  of band photographs with Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne which I've included in both it's original form and the album cover . Sorry about the reproduction size. 14 . Lastly (for now)  I must include a classic piece of impressionist art which I'm pretty sure adorned one of my dad's records of popular classics on the MFP label (Music for Pleasure). It's Claude Monet's Poppy field and I'm sure you are familiar with it, and not just from a record album.  Please add your own to this thread. I will include a few more later in the week. 

Ian Anderson was - and is - a tightwad.  He was approached by Burton Silverman, in the hope of getting an enhanced payment for all his work, but Anderson rather coolly, though not impolitely, dismissed him.   Really, he should have approached Chrysalis Records rather than Anderson, though he might have helped, had he felt inclined to; seems he didn't much like the artwork anyway.  I've always enjoyed Jethro Tull, but this episode did nothing to strengthen my attachment.  

A superb selection Andrew and thanks for all the information to go along with them. 

One of my favourite album covers is Toyah's 'Anthem'.  I have learnt it is a painting by graphic artist Steve Weston (born Bournemouth, lived n Oxfordshire and died c2010), who became known as ' the dragonmaster'.

Some good choices. I like The Gun’s album cover, I remember reading Roger Dean had problems reproducing his artwork for this album  because he used a lot of glazes and it didn’t photograph well. He said it was a learning experience for him.  I liked that Toyah album cover too Tony, though I never owned it. I will have to look out more by Steve Weston. His style reminds me of Rodney Matthews work. I will have to see if I can find one of his album covers for this thread.  Interesting back story on Deceptive Bends Jenny. I always liked 10cc’s music, you were lucky to meet them. 

One more from me for today, drawn by American comic artist Neon Park for Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention album ‘Weasels Ripped My Flesh’. Born Martin Muller in 1940, Park was a prolific illustrator who worked on album art for many musicians including Little Feat, Bowie, Dr John and the Beach Boys. He died in 1993 from the genetic disease ALS. 

Great memories.  I didn't have a huge collection of albums, those I did were liked as much for the album covers as for the music.  Back in the sixties I'd spend time in record shops just to look at covers. The great Roger Dean was a favorite illustrator...this is one of his for Uriah Heap... For Aerosmith's 'Draw the Line'...appropriately designed by Al Hirschfeld, the brilliant  American cartoonist famed for his wonderful line drawings... I remember seeing a lot of albums illustration by Frank Frazetta, the fantasy artist... An album cover I liked.  Not much info on the artist 'a German surrealist artist.' Robert Crumb, the notorious 'underground' American cartoonist, was also a big music fan, played in a group, and produced lots of album covers of obscure (to me) blues and jazz bands...

Great selection Lewis, love all of them. There’s a great Robert Crumb cover on Cheap Thrills by Big Brother and the Holding Company which was where Janis Joplin started out.  I was looking at some of my album covers again, and found Abraxas by Santana, but as it’s mostly photo-montage, I thought I’d show their first album cover which is hand drawn by Lee Conklin: