Kenny Burrell & John Coltrane Album Cover
Date
1958
Credits
- Stylianos Gianakos Artist
- Don Schlitten Photographer
- Don Schlitten Designer
Format
- Album Art 462
- Record Sleeve 75
- Fine Art 64
Type of Work
- Finished work 5504
- Photo(s) 143
Techniques
- photography 84
- printing 488
Dimensions
- Width
- 4in
Locations Made
- United States 801
- New York 379
Album cover for Kenny Burrell and John Coltrane featuring a sculpture by Stylianos Gianakos, designed and photographed by Don Schlitten (credited on the cover). I thought this was a paper sculpture at first, but it's most likely fiberglass.
Album is on the Prestige label, recorded March 7, 1958
Information on the artist is slim. If anyone has additional info, please let me know.
Sun, Jul 7, 2024
Ok so… Your work puzzled me. I've never heard of Stylianos Gianakos, and it doesn't seem like Google has much info either. However, I did find a catalogue “Plastics and New Art” which has your guy on page 8. He was born 1938 in New York.
There are two other Gianakos names who worked in fine art based in New York. There's Cristos Gianakos born in 1934, who's much more well known for his 3D fiberglass and plastic work. This isn't who we're looking for, but Cristo had a brother named Steve Gianakos, who was born in 1938 and ALSO worked in art. I also found Steve's CV which has a lot of similarities to Cristos Gianakos. It seems as though Steve was living in the shadow of his brother, and he later found a name for himself elsewhere in the art world. Steve is much more well known for his work in Pop Art, but I'm willing to bet good money Steve is Stylianos Gianakos considering his proximity to a very well known 3D artist. Why the names are different I have no clue, there's plenty of reasons and cases for why artists may change their name.
Using the CV, we can date this work prior to him receiving his formal education. He would have been age 20 when he made this sculpture. This tracks, considering his work in pop art didn't really take off until the late the 70s (it's kind of raunchy if you ask me).
That's just my speculation, please correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks for the submission!
-DJ.