Storm Thorgerson's 'Pulse'
Seeing news of the pop artist Sir Peter Blake’s latest works for Oasis and the John Peel album prompts a debate that is close to my heart. It is the definition of an album cover image as ‘art’ as in fine art or ‘design’, as in graphic design.
Back in the 1950s the 331/3 rpm long playing record appeared in the shops and a new platform for imagery was born.
In the main this was a domain for photographers and graphic designers (nee commercial artists), but occasionally the ‘real’ artists dipped their toes into the genre. One example that comes to mind is the surrealist Salvador Dali creating a cover in 1955 for an LP by the American comedian and actor Jackie Gleason.
The LP cover was often as important to the collector as the music the LP contained. It was certainly a lure in the displays in the record shop and by the late 1960s would be an eagerly anticipated aspect of the total package.
By now we were calling them ‘albums’ and a roster of fine (pop) artists had contributed their work to the medium. To name a few:
Sir Peter Blake (Sergeant Pepper)
Andy Warhol (Velvet Underground, Rolling Stones)
Richard Hamilton (The White Album)
That collectors and museums were acquiring original and limited editions of other works by these artists goes without saying, but the art for the album covers remained in the design domain.
In 1999 I and a colleague hooked up with the designer Storm Thorgerson, one third of the famous design group ‘Hipgnosis’. Storm had been involved in some of the most iconic album art designs of the last four decades and it was his determination to publish his work as fine art prints. The fantastic advantage of this being that the work can be seen at a size and quality that allows full appreciation of the creativity.
We started (and I think we were possibly the first to do this) with a set of twelve prints of Pink Floyd covers, including Dark Side of The Moon, Animals and Wish You Were Here.
These pieces do really look fantastic; most of them are silkscreens, printed by established fine art studios that work with the great and good of the fine art world. The famous Coriander Studios for instance print for Damien Hirst, Bruce Maclean, Tracey Emin, Peter Blake and many more.
So put Hipgnosis’ and Storm’s work beside that of these eminent artists and how do they compare? Can Storm be considered as a fine artist? Much of his work is transitory and has to be photographed as a record and therefore could be categorised as ‘installation art’. In that context does it stand up against the Chapman Brothers’ ‘Hell’ or Tracey Emin’s ‘Bed’?
I think so – look at the giant sculptures of The Division Bell and the environment they were placed in.
I think that the key debate here is ‘does the album cover image, taken out of its normal context, presented in a fine art medium, make it art rather than design?.
The size is important, but so is the quality of the reproduction. Fine art silkscreen printing is a complex, technically demanding process, with anywhere from 10 to 30 screens used to produce one image. A far cry from 4 colour process printing. Even the modern trend of giclee (inkjet) printing creates the most remarkable results and bears no comparison with a litho printed poster.
So my premis is that I think we should be taking these pieces as seriously as we would if they were a Damien Hirst or a Tracey Emin.
I’m biased because I’m selling the work, but I am also passionate about it and that’s really what motivates me to represent and publish.