“Record covers seem to have punctuated our lives in so many ways. They remind us of where we were, what we were doing, who we were with. They mark our student days, our holidays, our growing up, and our coming of age.”
HYPERGALLERY publishes and deals in limited edition album cover art prints.
OUR BLOG is our space to publish insightful and inspiring articles about the work, the artists, and the special place in our cultural heritage that album cover art occupies. To keep abreast of pre-publication offers, latest releases, special deals & collaborations you'll want to get on our list.
We begin our new blogging journey with an introduction to what we do thanks to author and album art designer Richard Evans.
Words by Richard Evans
In a survey conducted in 1999 by the Sunday Times of the Top Fifty Millennium Masterworks, Sir Peter Blake’s design for the cover of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band came in at number 16, between Chartres Cathedral at 15 and War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy at number 17 – proof, if ever it were needed, that the album cover as an art form had finally come of age.
In the seven decades they’ve been around album covers have carried some quite outstanding and eclectic imagery. And we all have our favourites. They seem to have punctuated our lives in so many ways. In fact, these covers are perhaps the timelines of our lives. They remind us of where we were, what we were doing, who we were with; they mark our student days, our holidays, our growing up, and our coming of age.
We often talk about the ‘golden age’ of this and that and, yes, perhaps the golden age of album covers was the Sixties and Seventies – and yet every decade had its highpoints. Look at the wonderful designs of Jim Flora in the Forties and Fifties, the swinging Sixties of The Beatles, The Hollies, the Grateful Dead and the Incredible String Band reflected in the work of Peter Blake, Simon Posthuma and Gilbert Shelton, the most elaborate and innovative designs that sprang from the Seventies with covers for Yes, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, ELP, David Bowie, T-Rex and 10cc, created by the likes of Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell of Hipgnosis, Peter Corriston, Terry Pastor, John Pasche, Robert Crumb, HR Giger and George Hardie. The Eighties brought with them a whole slew of brilliant new designers including Peter Saville, Trevor Key and Robert Mapplethorpe, and with the coming of BritPop in the Nineties, Central Station Studios produced their innovative work for the Happy Mondays and Black Grape.
These leading album cover designers of yesterday and today have now produced limited editions of their work which are available through Hypergallery.
Hypergallery has been publishing and dealing in limited edition album cover art prints for over 10 years. We are album art enthusiasts, record cover lovers, well-connected collectors, and premium print publishers devoted to working with the greatest artists associated with this unique genre.
Several new prints have joined the Hypergallery portfolio over the last couple of months and there are many more to come. Get on our list to be sure you don't miss out on pre-publication offers, latest releases, special deals & collaborations.