Mati & The Music: 52 Record Covers / Portadas de Discos; 1955 / 2005

Iconic album cover designs from an era-defining artist, back in print

Published with Editions 213.

Mati Klarwein (1932–2002) was a major presence in the New York art scene, admired by everyone from Andy Warhol and Salvador Dalí to Jimi Hendrix and Jackie Onassis. His Pop-Surrealist universe of pantheistic religious harmony, sexual fertility and gender and racial unity gave visual expression to an era. Mati & the Music presents Klarwein’s 52 paintings that appeared on album covers, a body of work that began in the mid–1950s and continued for half a century. Many of the album covers were commissioned by the musicians themselves, most famously by Miles Davis for Bitches Brew and Live Evil and Carlos Santana for Abraxas. Others included Earth Wind & Fire, Buddy Miles and Gregg Allman. With the trim size of an LP album, Mati & The Music will appeal to lovers of music, graphic design and psychedelic art.

Klarwein was born in Germany in 1932 and moved to Paris in 1948 where he studied with the painter Fernand Leger. He was introduced to the art of Dali and Bunuel by Ernst Fuchs, who also taught him the mixed technique of Van Eyck and the Flemish School During his New York years, from 1965 onwards, Klarwein's work was considered to be inspired by Surrealism and the Psychedelic movement of the time. In the late 1970s Klarwein moved to Majorca, where he lived until he passed away in 2002. The artist completed many painting including famous commissioned portraits of politicians such as JFK, artists such as Jimi Hendrix and Leonard Bernstein, actors such as Brigitte Bardot and writers such as Robert Graves He was also famous for his landscapes, his still lifeworks and for the marry record covers he painted