A special exhibit now on display at the Gilmer Arts Gallery features life-size paintings of some of American popular music’s larger- than-life figures.
The work of Sidney Randolph Maurer is being shown at the Dalton Street gallery by his daughter, Claudia Bradford, who teaches music classes for Gilmer Arts.
Bradford said her father worked with and befriended some of popular music’s most famous artists during his lengthy career in the recording industry. That career began at age 17 when Maurer was hired as assistant art director at Columbia Records in New York City. There, he designed album covers for an array of artists and bands. Later, as an art designer for RCA Records, Maurer shared that responsibility another artist who would make a lasting impression on the art world, Andy Warhol.
Designing album covers for several other labels including CBS, Capitol, MGM and United Artists, Maurer’s work appeared on albums by a diverse range of performers including jazz greats like Duke Ellington, country and western stars George Jones and Tammy Wynette and folk singers Richie Havens and Donavon.
Bradford said her dad had a long friendship with Donavon, the Scottish singer whose best known songs include “Mellow Yellow,” “Catch the Wind” and “Season of the Witch.”
“Sid got brought on as the art director for a new label from Columbia called Epic Records. Donavon was the first (artist) to sign, and he was very close to my dad,” she added.
Several pieces in the exhibit are from Maurer’s “Famous Musicians” series. Featured subjects include Janis Joplin, Ray Charles, Miles Davis, Donavon, Frank Sinatra, Jimi Hendrix and Luciano Pavarotti. The exhibit also features a number of gold records for albums with which Maurer was involved.
Bradford said the exhibit features just a small sampling of her dad’s artwork. Aside from musical artists, his artistic subjects also included famous sports, historical, pop culture and political figures, as well as “Vanishing Georgia,” a series that focuses on important events and figures in the state’s history.
“There’s just so much,” Bradford said.
According to a bio of the artist, many of Maurer’s vibrant mixed media pieces began with photographs he took or was given by photographers or celebrities. The artist then used such media as acrylic paints, watercolor dyes and oils to complete the pieces, in which photographic images are often juxtaposed with seemingly random strings of numbers and letters. Bradford said that was one of her dad’s artistic signatures.
Maurer began to paint full time after leaving the music business and relocating to Atlanta in the early 1990s. His paintings have been shown at galleries in New York, Los Angeles and Paris, as well as at the Georgia State Capitol.
Although the digital age brought a change in how album covers were designed, mostly with computer software, many of Maurer’s album cover designs were reintroduced in the ‘90s and 2000s, albeit in smaller form.
“CDs created a whole new opportunity for things to be repackaged, and he got more work,” Bradford said.
When she was younger, Bradford didn’t realize the reach of her dad’s career in art and music.
“I didn’t know a lot about what was gong on with my dad because I had my own life by then,” she said.
She later realized what a special period he lived in and documented through his artwork. Maurer passed away in 2017.
“I thought this would be a good way to honor him,” Bradford said.
Also on display at the Gilmer Arts Gallery in recognition of Father’s Day are several paintings by Phillip A. Lewin, father of Gilmer Arts volunteer Lance Lewin.
In a dedication, Lance writes, “My father’s career saw him as a designer and later senior buyer in the aerospace industry, including working on the Lunar Module, the craft that landed on the moon. Later, in the mid-70’s, he helped design the Grumman X-29 jet fighter. These early paintings by my father hung in two different apartments in Brooklyn, N.Y., and later in our home on Long Island.”
The Our Fathers’ Art exhibit will remain on display for public viewing until June 30.