Graphic artist Storm Thorgerson, who designed the cover for Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon album and also created artwork for Led Zeppelin and Genesis in their heydays, has died. He was 69.
Thorgerson was a teenage friend of Pink Floyd's founding members and became their main designer. His most famous work is the prism and rainbow stripe on the The Dark Side of the Moon, which marked its 40th anniversary last month.
It was voted the greatest album cover of all time in a poll by website musicradar.com last year. Pink Floyd's Animals cover, in which Thorgerson depicted a pig flying over London's Battersea power station, came 10th.
"He has been a constant force in my life, both at work and in private, a shoulder to cry on and a great friend," Pink Floyd guitarist and singer David Gilmour said in a statement.
"The artworks that he created for Pink Floyd from 1968 to the present day have been an inseparable part of our work."
The Dark Side of The Moon, one of the best-selling albums of all time, was released in Britain in 1973 and became the band's first No. 1 album in the United States.
As well as working with Pink Floyd, the British designer created artwork for a list of musicians including Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Genesis, and, more recently, the Cranberries and Anthrax.
Thorgerson's family said in a statement that he died peacefully on Thursday, surrounded by family and friends.
Pink Floyd's drummer Nick Mason added his tribute to Thorgerson today, recalling his "great ideas and high, sometimes infuriatingly high, standards".
Mason said the artist was a “tireless worker right up to the end”.
“Two days before he passed away, and by then completely exhausted, he was still demanding approval for artwork and haranguing his loyal assistants,” he said.
Mason said he was a “dear friend to all of us, our children, our wives (and the exes); endlessly intellectual and questioning; breathtakingly late for appointments and meetings, but once there, invaluable for his ideas, humour, and friendship.”
He added: “Irreplaceable and unforgettable, but leaving a wonderful legacy of ideas, film, writings and art work, Hipgnosis and Storm have contributed to so many musicians to engineer sums immeasurably greater than their parts.”
Agencies