Album Cover Art

“Long before I knew about art galleries or even street art, I was excited about album cover art, if only because it was the visual counterpart to the music on the records I loved,” the street artist Shepard Fairey once said. In addition to Fairey’s iconic covers for countless vinyl records, artists from Andy Warhol (for The Velvet Underground) to Robert Mapplethorpe (for Patti Smith) to Jeff Koons (for Lady Gaga) have contributed album cover designs that help construct a musician’s image even before the music has had the chance to play. Whether released in the 1960s or this decade, record covers offer collectors a unique opportunity to own a piece of art history and music history.