Abe Gurvin
Abe Gurvin (Attleboro, Massachusetts, December 31, 1937 - Santa Maria, [Santa Barbara County], California, July 9, 2012) was one of the most prolific and interesting American artists, among the greatest representatives of 'psychedelic art' (which, in San Francisco, it was an evolution of 'groovy' art, and which drew inspiration from the systematic use of LSD). The news about his educational and professional training are totally absent from the websites, while his works are very well known, loved and awarded: he has designed album covers for artists such as Janis Joplin, The Zodiac, Federal Duck and Bread, but the historic series of Nuggets album covers for Elektra, represents an authentic masterpiece that sanctioned, and somehow closed, an extraordinary artistic era
Abe Gurvin's portfolio included advertising work for companies such as Toyota, Coca-Cola, Disney, Suzuki, IBM, Marantz, Scholastic, Kenwood, Time-Life Books, Sony Music, and many more. He has received awards from One Show, Communication Arts, New York Art Directors, Best of Show, LA Society of Illustrators, New York Society of Illustrators, Los Angeles Art Directors Club, Society of Publication Designers and The Belding Award.
We remember some graphic works by Abe Gurvin such as the unforgettable cover of Car & Driver of May 1968, where a psychedelic drawing had been transferred to the hood of a Porches; the collection of drawings for the Casserole Cookbook kitchen, for the Sci-Tech science fiction series and the numerous hand-drawn illustrations for an editorial project of fairy tales (still unpublished today) called I Am Being Me by Ann di Hope.
Abe Gurvin served on the board of directors of SILA (Los Angeles Society of Illustrators); in 1988 Gurvin moved to a mansion in Laguna Beach, California and later to Santa Maria where he died at the age of 74.
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Helmut Baumgart
Helmut Baumgart
Helmut Baumgart
the only flat thing to believe is the LP record
My precious collection is clear evidence that anything can be a treasure. The most important aspect for me is not represented by the value of the articles, but by the joy that these have given me over the years.
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I dischi di zecky
dischidizecky@gmail.com
Pictures of an Exhibition 2025
The home page is the most difficult page to write, because it has to say ‘something’, it has to be comprehensive about a certain topic (even if - in a while - it will be different, when the topic will change), and the topic should be, as much as possible, original, captivating. A year ago, it was September 2022, I had tried to tidy up some of my records and while I was handling them, moving them between the shelves, looking at them, I asked myself if it was possible to ‘think up’ a record calendar - to be published on FB - that would only take 33rpm with photographs of the performers of the same record on the cover, choosing the date of the day for their births or deaths (ditto for chamber ensembles: date of their formation and of the cessation of activity).
And so in 2025 I decided to make a kind of ‘Pictures of an Exhibition’ with the record covers I have been collecting since I was a child. I have the feeling that today - in the age of digital - graphic art plays a very marginal role in the classic record production chain: the coup de grace has been given to it by ‘liquid’ streaming, where the more banal the graphics, the better... is one of the signs of today's times. Once the year 2023 has passed, with 365 posts on FB dedicated to the great performers of classical music, and the year 2024 has also passed - with another 366 posts dedicated, precisely, to graphics for the world of classical vinyl - I want to update this website. I will try - within the limits imposed by the web - to dedicate more pages to the great designers and illustrators who have dedicated their art to the record ‘dress’. I am sure of two things: the first is that I know perfectly well that other musical genres - such as pop, rock and jazz - have inspired artists of enormous prestige, while the classical sector (after an initial, overwhelming presence on the market, thanks to Alex Steinweiss) has struggled a bit to find its way, trying in some cases to ‘copy’ what were the artistic directions for the artwork from other musical sectors; the second is that I am aware that I am not the only one (nor even the first) to create a website with record covers: many splendid websites have been dealing with graphic art applied to the classic product for many years, you just need to have a little patience and search for them on this maremagnum of information that is the internet.
The big names in graphic artwork form an art history of their own: in addition to the already mentioned Steinweiss - I would say the progenitor of the prestigious gallery of artists you will read about below, and I apologise if it is very long and redundant - we find (in alphabetical order): Charles Alston, David Anstey, Enrico Arno, Atelier Cassandre, Jan Balet, Helmut Baumgart, Fulvio Bianconi, Vladimir Bobritsky, James Neil Boyle, Horst Breitkreuz, Jean Cayré, Clifford Condak, Guido Crepax, Frank Daniel, Frank Decker, Dorothea Desmarowitz, Matthieu Diesse, Dick Ellescas, Jim Endicott, Philip Featheringill, Patricia Fèvre, Jim Flora, Gray Foy, Maria Antonietta Gambaro, Joe Garnett, Gerry Gersten, Johann Georg Geyger, Milton Glaser, Alex Gnidziejko, John Günther, Ken Gunall, Abe Gurvin, Jules Halfant, Mizue Hamilton, Roger Hane, Monica Hartmann, Michel Hartmann, Peter Hoffer, Mari Kaarma, Eugene Karlin, Warren A. Kass, Jan Kavan, Gordon Kebbee, Gary Kelly, Theodore Kiros, Mati Klarwein, Arthur Kraft, Barbara Kraft, Harold M. Kramer, Jana Krouzilova, Joseph Krush, Donald Leake, Doris Lee, Herschel Levit, Lee Levy, Emanuele Luzzati, George Maas, Jim McMullan, Gitta Mallasz, Jack Martin, Frederic Marvin, Joost Minderhoud, Monogram Art Studio, Harriet Moore, Ralph Moore-Morris, Bruno Munari, Ikuo Nitijida, Gerhard Noack, Patricia Pardieu, Bob Pepper, Liane Payne, Heather Payne, Marcello Piccardo, Richard M. Powers, Ken Rossi, Peter Schaumann, Henry Stahlbert, Silvan Steenbrink, Klaus Steffen, Merle Shore, Donald Silverman, Nicola Simbari, Joseph Solman, Ed Sorel, Leonardo Stroppa, Studio 52 [Milan] by Helmut Ebnet, Gene Szafran, Naoji Tomori, John Trotta, Rostislav Vanék, Robert van Nutt, Jacques Vatoux, Jean-Paul Veret-Lemarinier, Eric von Schmidt, Peter Wandrey, Tom Worman, Arthur Wragg, Kinuko Yamabe-Craft, Bob Ziering; and photographers Carl Fischer, Sam Gallo, Francisco Hidalgo, Paul Huf, Lester Krauss, Holger Matthies, Ben Rose, Susanne Schapowalow, Helmut Tobias, Ken Veeder, Con van Tol & Ruud Nooy, Andy Warhol, Christopher Whorf, Garry Winogrand and many others.
The long list has been compiled so that I can keep in mind the immense work of acquiring covers that I will have to do (and it is my pleasure) for this website. It will be a work-in-progress to which I will devote all my time for the next few years. I will add covers as I am able to scan them and group them by artist. I hope to do with this, some justice to the classical sector, since - you see it on every book-selling website - there is still a lack of a ‘guide’ to the history of classical music cover art.
