Olga Lehmann’s album covers

From 1953 to 1957, artist Olga Lehmann designed a fair few LP covers for the Argo label. I thought they deserved to be gathered together in one place – so below are the ones I’ve come across. There may be a couple missing.

(At the very bottom of the page there are watercolour sketches for five of the album covers that I was put onto by someone who happened across this post.)

There’s plenty of information around about the Chilean-born artist and her remarkable, broad-ranging career as a portrait artist, costume and set designer, illustrator, and painter of murals. If you’re interested in finding out more, there are some links at the bottom of the page.

Her work for Argo was a sideline, coming at a time when she was pretty flat out doing stuff for films. When she did her first LP cover for the label, she’d just finished doing the costume design and a set portrait for the Errol Flynn film The Master of Ballantrae (released in 1953). Here’s what else she was involved with in those Argo years.

1953
Presumably because he was impressed by her work on The Master of Ballantrae, Flynn commissioned her in 1953 to paint a swashbuckling mural – Captain Bligh and all – for the entrance lobby of his Tichfield Hotel in Port Antonio, Jamaica.

And, I guess, (how far ahead of a film’s release does the storyboard get written/drawn?) she was already at work on the storyboard for 44-year-old Errol’s next film, the 1955 medaeval pot-boiler ‘The Dark Avenger’.

What else in 1953? One of many collaborations over the years with herbalist, holistic vet and poetess Juliette de Bairacli Levy, illustrating her novel ‘The Bride of Llew’.

1954
The following year’s work included the cover illustration for Mary Elwyn Patchett’s kids’ book ‘Evening Star’ and the costume design for the 1956 rampaging-Mau-Mau-and-elephants romp ‘Safari’, putting Vivien Leigh into some body-hugging, daytime jungle wear and something suitably elegant for night-time clinches with Victor Mature.

1955
More storyboard work (and assistant art director) for the 1956 film Around the World in 80 Days, the credits sequence for ‘Safari’ and costume design for ‘The Big Money’ and ‘Gamma People’ (kitting out gamma-ray-fried goons, brainwashed commie kids and Leslie Phillips for the latter).

1956
Lehmann did the set design and the costumes, and devised and designed the ‘house of cards’ dance sequence for the ‘rocking and rolling romance’ film Let’s be Happy – the lovely (and now ageing) Vera-Ellen’s last film – a box office flop. She also designed the costumes for the Australian pioneer days adventure film ‘Robbery under Arms’.

1957
Work on two classics: The Adventures of Tom Thumb, for which Lehmann designed the costumes and the credit titles, and the Inn of the Sixth Happiness, for which she did the storyboard.

Click on the Tom Thumb poster for the credits sequence.

Throughout the 1953-57 period she was also doing illustrations for BBC publications like London Calling, Radio Times and the schools music programme Singing Together.

The connection with Argo became a family one in 1955, when Lehmann’s husband, writer and broadcaster Richard Carl Huson, joined the label as Director of Public Relations.

Another little footnote: it was Lehmann’s sister (then editor of Architectural Design Monica Pidgeon) who introduced Argo founder Harley Usill to would-be field recordist Deben Bhattacharya in 1953. A good move for both Argo and ‘world’ music.

Lehmann sources
Some interesting stuff from the British Film Institute. Click here.
A nice tribute page by Mandie Stone with a promise of a whole lot more. Here.
The Olga Lehmann Wikipedia page. Here.

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THE OLGA LEHMANN ALBUM COVERS FOR ARGO

	1953 T. S. Eliot – The Waste Land read by Robert Speaight (Argo RG 10)
	1954 Dylan Thomas – Under Milk Wood BBC Cast, including Richard Burton (Argo RG 21-22)
	1954 Edric Connor and The Caribbeans – Songs from Jamaica (Argo RG 33)
	1955 Eric Robinson – Music For You (Argo RG 40)
	1957? Renaissance Singers – William Byrd Mass for Four Voices (Argo RG 42)
	1955 Various artists – Constant Lambert Concerto for solo piano & Poems by Li Po (Argo RG 50)
	1955 Robert Masters Piano Quartet – Faure Quartet for piano & strings (Argo RG 55)
	1955 Edric Connor and The Southlanders – Songs from Trinidad (Argo RG 57)
	1955 Edric Connor – Calypso (Argo RG 58)
	1956 Carmen Prietto with Bert Weedon – Songs from Mexico (Argo RG 70)
	1956 Various Artists – Robert Still Quintet for 3 flutes & Sonata for viola and cello (Argo RG 74)
	1955 Various artists – John Gay The Beggar’s Opera (Argo RG 76-8)
	1956 Various artists – Bela Bartok Sonata for two pianos & Contrasts (Argo RG 89)
	1957 Max Rostal & Colin Horsley – Elgar Sonata for violin and pianoforte (Argo TM 49)
	1958 The Jacobean Ensemble – Purcell Sonatas (Argo RG113)

 

SOME WATERCOLOUR SKETCHES FOR THE ALBUM COVERS

	RG 21 – Under Milk Wood
	RG 55 – Faure
	RG 58 – Calypso
	RG 89 – Bartok
	TM 49 – Elgar

~ by folkcatalogue on July 21, 2010.