Gene Greif, 50, a Graphic Designer Of Record Covers
Hyfler/Rosner
Retro Flair
BYLINE: By STEVEN HELLER NY Times
http://www.stock-illustration-portfolios.com/artistPage/Greif_Gene.html
The Clash album:
http://www.collectorscum.com/justin/clashlp2.jpg
Gene Greif, whose witty collage and montage album-cover
illustrations for CBS Records helped popularize the retro
style of graphic design in the 1980's, died on Saturday in
Manhattan. He was 50.
The cause was complications from hepatitis C, which he
contracted from a blood transfusion after a 1977 car
accident, said James Biber, a friend.
While on staff as an artist and designer from 1977 to 1980
at CBS Records, then known as an industry leader for
innovative album art, Mr. Greif specialized in pop music and
designed scores of album covers, including some for Phoebe
Snow and the B-52's. But it was his cover for the Clash's
album ''Give 'Em Enough Rope,'' with its stark flat colors,
messy faux-Japanese lettering and eerie image of a slain
cowboy being eaten by buzzards while an enigmatic figure on
a horse nonchalantly observes the feast, that influenced
other punk album graphics. It helped introduce a postmodern
graphic style noted for the reprise of passe images and
found art.
Mr. Greif also designed a special Bloomingdale's shopping
bag that combined elements of Cubism and Dada into a
composition that is now in museum collections.
''Gene reinvigorated contemporary collage-based illustration
in the late 70's to the present by combining visual and
typographic puns with Surrealist and Constructivist
influences,'' said the graphic designer Carin Goldberg, with
whom he collaborated on book covers and jackets.
Mr. Greif's recognizable style as an illustrator was also
partly a result of his keen expertise with the airbrush,
which allowed him to wed disparate images and objects
seamlessly into a unified image.
In addition to working on records, books and bags, in 1980
Mr. Greif was a staff designer at Rolling Stone magazine and
an art director at Vogue and Working Woman magazines.
Gene Howard Greif was born on Sept. 11, 1954, in Queens. He
attended what is now the LaGuardia High School of Music and
Art and Performing Arts in Manhattan, and graduated from the
Cooper Union School of Art in 1976.
He is survived by his partner, Gary Cruz of Manhattan; a
brother, Barry, of Riverdale, the Bronx; and a sister,
Brenda Appel of Manalapan, N.J.