Customer Reviews

For the Record: The Life and Work of Alex Steinweiss

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I wish there was some way to stop Steven Heller from repeating the falsehood that Steinweiss "invented" the illustrated album cover. He has taken the fact of when Steinweiss did HIS first illustrated cover and taken it to mean that it was THE first illustrated cover. There had been a series of nearly 100 illustrated album covers on Decca Records for nearly six years BEFORE Steinweiss's first cover. And even before that, Show Boat and Blackbirds of 1928 on Brunswick had illustrated covers. Other companies had used illustrated album covers. RCA Bluebird had children's albums with illustrated covers, the Bubble Books were completely illustrated children's record albums going back to the World War One era, and many other examples I can name and show. Calling Steinweiss the "inventor" of the modern illustrated album cover is a factual error, but Stephen Heller just keeps on and on and on publishing new books and articles repeating this falsehood, convincing people who have no first-hand knowledge of record albums that this is a fact. Steinweiss is a talented, wonderful, inventive artist, but all he did was convince Columbia to compete with the well established, long running series of illustrated album covers that Decca had been using for many years. He did not "invent" the concept of the illustrated album cover, he did not create the first illustrated record album, he just changed the attitude of HIS company, and then created some wonderful art. Isn't that good enough? This is a beautiful book, but is flawed because of the overreaching claim of priority that seems to have overwhelmed the other reviewers.

I would happily have awarded this marvellous book 5-stars were it not for the fact that most of the album cover images have been badly cropped. 'Nuff said.

This book does credit to a great man. Steinweiss was a true artist and a pioneer. The man created the concept of album cover as art. McKnight-Trontz does a masterful job of celebrating the artist through dazzling illustrations and informative, entertaining narrative. The casual reader will enjoy this book, as will the academic: it's all there between the brilliant covers (Steinweiss design - of course); it is the individual reader's choice as to how deep he or she wants to delve into this fascinating subject of a true twentieth-century art form.

alex steinweiss is a fantastic human being. generous, funny and full of great stories from his time at columbia records in the early 40's. He is tremendously talented and not just created the concept of album covers, designing more than 800 of them (start looking at your old collection in the attic :-)) but has been for the last 20 years a major accomplished painter. He has gotten awards after awards and stays humble and wise. He lives in Sarasota, Florida.

Steinweiss was lucky enough to be given carte blanche after he "invented" graphic design for records. 10 years later people started to limit his freedom and genius with marketing arguments (necessity of pictures on the cover, and so on...). I wish i had lived in those times.

It was a 23-year-old graphic designer who invented the illustrated album cover for phonograph records in 1939: before that they came in plain wrappers. For The Record documents the life and work of Alex Steinweiss, gathering over a hundred of his original graphics and providing a lavish color display of his works along with a history of his involvements in the music industry.

This is an unbelievably interesting art book -- record album cover art by the man who (it turns out) created the first record album covers. He is obviously an incredibly imaginative and talented artist and designer and the book is not only a tribute to his creativity, but also very evocative of a time that is precious to those of us who remember records!

This book is very good for people who want to know more about cover albuns design. Alex Steinweiss are genious! =)