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Iconic Album Cover Creator Dies

 

The name might not be familiar, but the artwork Storm Thorgerson did is indelibly imprinted on the minds of  millions of Rock fans.  Thorgerson was the creative artist responsible for Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the MoonAnimals, Wish You Were Here and Momentary Lapse of Reason, along with the cover art for a number of other artists, including album art for GenesisStyx and Led Zeppelin (Houses Of The Holy, Presence).  Even though he was a childhood friend of David Gilmour, Roger Waters and Syd Barrett, Thorgerson's first Floyd cover gig came his way because his flat mate, artist Aubrey Powell, turned the job down.  Thorgerson submitted a piece for the band to consider using for A Saucerful of Secrets, the group's second album.  Impressed, they came back to him in 1972 to ask him to come up with something '...graphic, cool and deliberate' for the cover of Dark Side Of The Moon. The stark, simple piece he came up with for the monumentally successful 1973 album became arguably the most recognized album cover in Rock history.  He would go on to create considerably more involved pieces - most notably the giant, inflatable Pig he floated over a UK  power station for the cover to 1977's Animals album and the 700 hospital beds he had deployed on a beach for the cover shoot of the 1987 Floyd release, A Momentary Lapse of Reason.

Thorgerson died Thursday (4/18) of cancer at the age of 69.
NYTimes.com