{"id":28067,"date":"2025-05-05T16:30:55","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T15:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=28067"},"modified":"2025-05-05T12:47:44","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T11:47:44","slug":"the-art-of-dick-ellescas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2025\/05\/05\/the-art-of-dick-ellescas\/","title":{"rendered":"The art of Dick Ellescas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ellescas01.jpg\"<\/p>\n

The Boy Friend (1971).<\/em><\/p>\n

I chanced upon the album cover art of Dick Ellescas a few weeks ago when I was searching for something on Discogs. Classical music labels are extraordinarily lazy when it comes to packaging their recordings, as a result of which the commissioning of original art always stands out. Dick Ellescas turned up again more recently when I was working my way through the Ken Russell filmography. Russell’s Sandy Wilson adaptation, The Boy Friend<\/em>, was released in the US with an Ellescas poster that combines an Art Deco style with the modishness of early 70s graphics. This also stood out from the crowd and sent me in search of more of the same. The examples here are only a small selection from the Ellescas oeuvre; Discogs credits him with over 30 album covers. The Strauss cover below is uncredited so there may be more out there. Some of Ellescas’s illustrations for Cosmopolitan<\/em> magazine may be seen here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"ellescas02.jpg\"<\/p>\n

The Magic Christian (1969).<\/em><\/p>\n

\"ellescas03.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Borodin\/Liadov: Symphony No.1\/From The Book Of Revelation From Days Of Old\/A Musical Snuff-box (1971); Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra, USSR Symphony Orchestra.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"ellescas04.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Strauss: Die Frau Ohne Schatten (1971); Kurt Eichhorn, Orchestra of Bavarian Radio, James King.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"ellescas05.jpg\"<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker (Complete Ballet, Op. 71) (1972); Andr\u00e9 Previn, The London Symphony Orchestra.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"ellescas06.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Stravinsky: The Firebird (Complete Original Version, 1910) (1973); Seiji Ozawa, Orchestre De Paris.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"ellescas07.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Tchaikovsky: Sleeping Beauty (Complete Ballet) (1974); Andr\u00e9 Previn, London Symphony Orchestra.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"ellescas08.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Wagner: Tristan Und Isolde (1974); Wilhelm Furtw\u00e4ngler, Philharmonia Orchestra, Kirsten Flagstad, Ludwig Suthaus.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"ellescas09.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Sibelius: Four Legends From The “Kalevala” (1975); Sir Charles Groves, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"ellescas10.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Swan Lake, The Complete Ballet, Op. 20 (1976); Andr\u00e9 Previn, London Symphony Orchestra.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"ellescas11.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Ravel\/Debussy: Bolero\/La Mer\/Pr\u00e8lude \u00c0 L’apr\u00e8s-midi D’un Faune (1977); Herbert von Karajan, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"ellescas12.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Ket\u00e8lbey: In A Monastery Garden (1978); John Lanchberry, Philharmonia Orchestra.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"ellescas13.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Prokofiev: Romeo And Juliet (Suite From The Ballet) (1979); Andr\u00e9 Previn, London Symphony Orchestra.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"ellescas14.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Verdi: Aida (1980); Riccardo Muti, New Philharmonia Orchestra, Montserrat Caball\u00e9, Placido Domingo.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"ellescas15.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade (1983); Riccardo Muti, Philadelphia Orchestra.<\/em><\/p>\n

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 The album covers archive<\/a>
\n\u2022 The illustrators archive<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Boy Friend (1971). I chanced upon the album cover art of Dick Ellescas a few weeks ago when I was searching for something on Discogs. Classical music labels are extraordinarily lazy when it comes to packaging their recordings, as a result of which the commissioning of original art always stands out. Dick Ellescas turned … Continue reading “The art of Dick Ellescas”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"New blog post: The art of Dick Ellescas","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4,7,48,3],"tags":[13976,595,13977],"class_list":["post-28067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-design","category-film","category-illustrators","category-music","tag-dick-ellescas","tag-ken-russell","tag-sandy-wilson"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-7iH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28067\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}