album photography

In 1938, Alex Steinweiss invented the album cover. It’s almost unimaginable that there was a time when records didn’t have covers (up until that point, they were sold in relatively plain brown paper wrappers advertising the record companies. See photo at right). Steinweiss’s idea was a huge marketing success which exploded into a new and exciting world of art and design. Now artists could explore their creativity in more expressive ways in a new commercial market. During the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s Jim Flora, Ben Shahn, Rudolph de Harak, Reid Miles, Steinweiss, and even Andy Warhol were major contributors to album cover design. Read more…