A Slight Detour from Comic Art: Where Has Original Album Cover Art Ended Up? (i.e., Derek Riggs, Ed Repka, etc) 1 1

[delekkerste]

On 10/5/2023 at 11:15 AM, Bronty said:

The details in both the auction description and this article https://www.revolvermag.com/culture/quiet-riots-metal-health-story-behind-cover-art are highly underwhelming, but to me it seems this may well be a hybrid; don't feel bad.    A few artists at the time would use a photograph as, essentially, underpainting and then airbrush on top of it and/or add traditional brush accents to be able to play with color and other elements.     Sort of like taking a photo and manipulating it in photoshop now, I guess.   

Yeah, that makes a lot more sense - photograph with airbrushed accents. Still very cool, though! 

The mask depicted on the album cover sold for $50K in the same auction!

[Bronty]

good catch Gene.

[fsumavila]

On 10/5/2023 at 9:42 AM, tth2 said:

The OA for Led Zeppelin I sold at Christie's for $325k in 2020.

holy , that's awesome. Didn't know it was a tracing of an actual photograph of the Hindenburg. Doubly awesome that the artist held on to the artwork!

 

[Bronty]

On 10/5/2023 at 11:34 AM, fsumavila said:

holy , that's awesome. Didn't know it was a tracing of an actual photograph of the Hindenburg. Doubly awesome that the artist held on to the artwork!

 

I didn't know either.   Makes sense though; like the Quiet Riot discussion if you wanted to manipulate a photograph back then you had to take these sorts of approaches.

That's an incredible album to have the OA for.    Just too bad in a sense that there isn't 'more' to the art.    I think that's one where if the work itself was more impressive the sky would be the ceiling on the price.

[Brian Peck]

On 10/5/2023 at 7:01 AM, Bronty said:

Yeesh, 1m for pencils.

What was the price on the Vargas if you recall?

I don't remember

[Dr. Balls]

On 10/5/2023 at 9:15 AM, Bronty said:

The details in both the auction description and this article https://www.revolvermag.com/culture/quiet-riots-metal-health-story-behind-cover-art are highly underwhelming, but to me it seems this may well be a hybrid; don't feel bad.    A few artists at the time would use a photograph as, essentially, underpainting and then airbrush on top of it and/or add traditional brush accents to be able to play with color and other elements.     Sort of like taking a photo and manipulating it in photoshop now, I guess.   At which point.... maybe 45k was the right number.

Thanks for posting that - I wondered if that cover art was a type of underpainting or what, that clarifies a lot. There's a computer program called 'Painter' which allows you to do underpainting with a wider variety of brushes, styles and mediums - it's an interesting process. I used it for a few years with my own digital art - I would create the work in Photoshop, and then use Painter to give areas in the art a unique brushed feel.

[Bronty]

For any Canadians in the crowd, sadly it appears the Fully Completely album art (a huge album here at the time) is a collage of manipulated photocopies.   On the plus side, the band thought enough of it to purchase it.

Album artwork[edit]

The cover art for Fully Completely was designed by Dutch artist Lieve Prins.^[3] Prins was given the idea of a "bacchanalian sort of scene – lots of decadence, decay and rebirth," by Hip guitarist Rob Baker, and was left to work with the idea.^[4] Prins also drew inspiration from I ching symbols and numbers.^[4] The final artwork was created using a Canon colour photocopier.^[5] The cover consists of 30 segmented photocopied images pasted together.^[3] The band was granted licensing privileges to the artwork, but Prins retained the ownership of the actual artwork.^[3] In the late 1990s, the Tragically Hip bought the piece from a gallery in Los Angeles.^[3] It now hangs prominently in their studio near Kingston, Ontario.^[3]

 

[alxjhnsn]

On 10/4/2023 at 3:39 PM, vodou said:

https://shungagallery.com/appetite-for-destruction-robert-williams/

That was interesting. Thanks for posting.

[Bronty]

On 10/5/2023 at 12:09 PM, Dr. Balls said:

Thanks for posting that - I wondered if that cover art was a type of underpainting or what, that clarifies a lot. There's a computer program called 'Painter' which allows you to do underpainting with a wider variety of brushes, styles and mediums - it's an interesting process. I used it for a few years with my own digital art - I would create the work in Photoshop, and then use Painter to give areas in the art a unique brushed feel.

No sweat.   About ten years ago now heritage sold the artwork for Robocop, and the artist involved there used what I suspect is a similar process (minus the ammonia?).  The description is linked below.

https://movieposters.ha.com/itm/movie-posters/action/robocop-orion-1987-original-mike-bryan-poster-artwork-3325-x-5125-total-2-items-/a/7094-83131.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515

Edited October 5, 2023 by Bronty

[lb jefferies]

Not album art, but a painting I own by S. Neil Fujita, who was the cover artist/designer for Dave Brubeck Quartet, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, etc. This is short piece on him if anyone is interested: https://youtu.be/XmMzVVvCa1k

 

(He also was the designer of the Godfather logo).

 

 

[PhilipB2k17]

I think that Enki Bilal cover art for the Duran Duran album is on the market again. 

[Bronty]

On 10/5/2023 at 3:08 PM, PhilipB2k17 said:

I think that Enki Bilal cover art for the Duran Duran album is on the market again. 

pic?

[oldwhy]

On 10/5/2023 at 9:00 PM, Bronty said:

pic?

This one?

https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/enki-bilal-n-en-1951-duran-duran-arena-dapr-18A4FEF8F3

Edited October 5, 2023 by oldwhy

[tth2]

On 10/5/2023 at 11:04 PM, Dr. Balls said:

Between Playboy, Miami Vice, Duran Duran and aggressive licensing in the 80's and 90's (I worked at a Prints Plus frame shop in the mall in Denver, and framed at least 5 of his prints a week), his work is burned into everyone's brain from age 40-up. If the 80's had one graphic image to sum up everything about it - it'd probably be a Patrick Nagel painting.

The downside is there's so much Nagel art and it all looks basically the same.  

Nonetheless, the OA for "Rio" would be something special.

[tth2]

On 10/5/2023 at 11:15 PM, Bronty said:

The details in both the auction description and this article https://www.revolvermag.com/culture/quiet-riots-metal-health-story-behind-cover-art are highly underwhelming, but to me it seems this may well be a hybrid; don't feel bad.    A few artists at the time would use a photograph as, essentially, underpainting and then airbrush on top of it and/or add traditional brush accents to be able to play with color and other elements.     Sort of like taking a photo and manipulating it in photoshop now, I guess.   At which point.... maybe 45k was the right number.

 

Ah, that would actually explain a lot.  If it's basically a photo with some airbrushing on it, then I don't feel bad about missing out on it.

[tth2]

On 10/5/2023 at 10:19 PM, tth2 said:

I would guess that the actual art used for the cover would be the most valuable album OA out there (because it's Warhol).  Second place would be the "Revolver" cover OA.

Other extremely valuable covers would be "Boston" and some of Roger Dean's Yes covers and also his cover to "The Magician's Birthday".

Other album OA that would probably rank among the most valuable:

Beatles "Yellow Submarine" by Heinz Edelman

Kiss "Destroyer" by Ken Kelly

Black Sabbath "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" by Drew Struzan

David Bowie "Diamond Dogs" by Guy Peellaert

 

[Bronty]

Oh, Van Halen 1984 would be cool.    I had that back in the day.    

Some of these great bands really only had a memorable image or two.

I like Aerosmith but I can't say care for the Toys in the Attic illustration, for example.

[Bronty]

I'd enjoy this piece of cheese as well

 

[Bronty]

On 10/5/2023 at 10:08 PM, tth2 said:

Ah, that would actually explain a lot.  If it's basically a photo with some airbrushing on it, then I don't feel bad about missing out on it.

Yeah, I very much suspect that’s what we are looking at.    In defense of the process however, the pieces I've owned that were done in this manner were manipulated heavily enough that the underlying photo really was transformed into something new.    That being said, the artist likely could not have started with a blank illustration board and achieved the same result, so it’s not really pure illustration, either.    It sort of has a foot in both camps.    

Edited October 6, 2023 by Bronty

[vodou]

On 10/5/2023 at 10:20 PM, tth2 said:

Kiss "Destroyer" by Ken Kelly

Does not exist anymore. Was with Manager Bill Aucoin for many years, treated poorly and eventually trashed; alternate story: lost to fire.