Exhibit | Art & Design: Album cover art through the decades

An album is not just about the sounds on the record. Like sheet music, which creates its visual aesthetic through images and notation, albums cultivate their artistic vision through cover art.

Graphic artist Alex Steinweiss, who worked as the art director for Columbia Records, is credited for pioneering album cover art in the late 1930s. With the development of the long-playing record by mid-century, cover art evolved in many ways, utilizing photography and drawing inspiration from various artists and artistic trends, from conceptual art to Andy Warhol's pop art.

"Art & Design: Album cover art through the decades" features albums from the Marvin Duchow Music Library's regular collection and the Audiovisual Archives that showcase daring, inventive, and whimsical cover art from its early beginnings through the golden era of the LP.

See the exhibition during the Marvin Duchow Music Library's opening hours.