Album Cover Portraits by Lotte Meitner-Graf

I was so impressed when I discovered the portraits of Lotte Meitner-Graf, who made wonderful photographs of artistic and scientific worthies of the 1930s to the 1960s, in her London studio. Many of her best portraits can be seen at the website of the National Portrait Gallery in London, but there's another source for fabulous shots: LP covers.

This is one of the great album cover photos: David Oistrakh and Otto Klemperer, on a 1961 Columbia disc of the Brahms Violin Concerto. It's not clear if this is a single photo or a collage, but in either case it's superbly atmospheric, and hints at the depth of feeling these two great musicians bring to this music. By the way, it was when my brother Lane found this album at a record store that I first learned about Lotte Meitner-Graf.

This intense Lotte Meitner-Graf portrait of Herbert Karajan is for a Tchaikovsky disc from 1960, also from Columbia. It's a photograph that makes me think of Isaiah Berlin's famous quote: "He was a genius—with a whiff of sulphur about him."

A very fine portrait of the young Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, for a Schubert Lieder album from 1961.

Carlo Maria Giulini looks as refined as his Dvorak sounds, in this 1962 album cover portrait by Lotte Meitner-Graf.

There's been a lot of discussion of the portraits of Leonard Bernstein with the recent release of Bradley Cooper's film Maestro. This is a classic shot of Lenny's profile by Lotte Meitner-Graf, for a 1966 Mahler release from Vienna.

Here's a rare Lotte Meitner-Graf portrait taken outside the studio, and it's a big winner. Meitner-Graf has captured the spontaneity that's an important part of Rosalyn Turek's recordings of Bach for the piano. This compilation includes music recorded in 1960, so I'll assume that's about when this photo was taken.

Lotte Meitner-Graf's portrait of harpsichordist George Malcolm for a 1969 Couperin album.

I find Lotte Meitner-Graf's double portraits are often more interesting than her solo shots. This 1969 photograph of soprano Margaret Price and pianist James Lockhart is beautifully lit, and beautifully composed.

Here's the only album with a Lotte Meitner-Graf portrait cover from my own LP collection: the father and son team of David and Igor Oistrakh. Their 1961 recording of the Bach Concerto for Two Violins is legendary.

Another fabulous double portrait by Lotte Meitner-Graf: Julian Bream with his wonderful lute, and tenor Peter Pears, from 1960.

Portraits by Lotte Meitner-Graf

Lotte Meitner-Graf photographed many of the world's great artists, scientists and writers, from the 1930s until her death twenty years later. She had her own studio at 23 Old Bond Street in London from 1953. Here are some of my favourite portraits.

Leontyne Price by Lotte Meitner-Graf, c. 1958

Helene Weigel by Lotte Meitner-Graf, 1930s

Otto Klemperer by Lotte Meitner-Graf, 1950s

Yehudi Menuhin by Lotte Meitner-Graf, c. 1963

Jean Seberg by Lotte Meitner-Graf, c. 1957

Albert Schweitzer by Lotte Meitner-Graf, 1959

Danny Kaye by Lotte Meitner-Graf, c. 1955

The writer Elizabeth Taylor by Lotte Meitner-Graf, c. 1957

Niels Bohr by Lotte Meitner-Graf, c. 1956

Benjamin Britten by Lotte Meitner-Graf, c. 1960

Nobel Prize-winning chemist Dorothy Hodgkin by Lotte Meitner-Graf, 20 July 1960

Chinua Achebe by Lotte Meitner-Graf, c. 1970

Julian Bream and Peter Pears by Lotte Meitner-Graf, c. 1960

And finally, a self-portrait of Lotte Meitner-Graf from the early 1950s.

Richard Avedon album covers

Simon & Garfunkel's 1968 album Bookends features a portrait by Richard Avedon. Over the years the great photographer has been responsible for some great album covers.

The Dave Brubeck Quartet's Red Hot & Cool was recorded at the Basin Street East club in New York at three sessions in 1954 and 1955. Richard Avedon's favourite model (and mine), Suzy Parker, is wonderful here, connecting with Brubeck at the piano. Paul Desmond, Bob Bates & Joe Dodge are all there, even if they're out of focus.

The Yellow Shark, with the Ensemble Modern, 1993. This was Frank Zappa's last album; it was released a month before his death. One of Richard Avedon's greatest portraits.

Richard Avedon died in 2004. I'm not sure when this Mitsuko Uchida portrait was made, but this Beethoven album was released in 2006, so this is likely from late in Avedon's own career.

From 1960: Igor Stravinsky conducts The Rite of Spring. Stravinsky was photographed by all the greats over the years, but this shot by Richard Avedon is as good as any.

Lenny by Dick Avedon, 1976

Muddy Waters by Richard Avedon. Hard Again, 1977. What a great portrait!

Dexter Gordon by Richard Avedon, Gotham City, 1981. A wonderful shot on the back!

Two more great portraits by Richard Avedon, for Johnny Winter's Second Winter, from 1969.

In his 2021 book Mike Nichols: A Life, Mark Harris talks about Richard Avedon's first meeting with Nichols and his comedy partner Elaine May:

Avedon invited them to his Park Avenue apartment for a brainstorming session. Nichols and May walked in, sat down on what he described as “a big white couch covered in a field-of-poppies fabric,” and started batting ideas back and forth with him. “At the end of the visit,” Nichols said, “he put his arm around me and walked me to the elevator. He said, ‘I have the feeling we’re going to be friends for life.’”

One of their first projects together was this cover for An Evening With Mike Nichols and Elaine May, from 1961.

And Avedon delivers an even better shot for the back cover:

In the following year, these three came up with another great cover, for Nichols and May Examine Doctors. They're obviously having fun!