Paul Whitehead

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Paul Whitehead is a painter and graphic artist known for his surrealistic album covers for artists on the Charisma Records label in the 1970s, such as Genesis and Van der Graaf Generator.

An art show in London in the mid-sixties, led to Whitehead being picked up as an in-house artist for the London office of Jazz record label Liberty Records. The first record cover he designed was for a repackaged Fats Domino album. This was followed by a series of work for other reissues for the UK market.

In 1968, Whitehead became the original art director for Time Out in London magazine. This job led to further commissions for album covers.

After a meeting with producer John Anthony, Whitehead was introduced to the band Genesis. He was hired to do the cover to their 1970 album, Trespass. The band's record label, Charisma Records, gave Whitehead complete creative control over his work. Fruitful work in collaboration with Genesis, Van der Graaf Generator, Lindisfarne, and Peter Hammill followed at Charisma. Whitehead is also credited with playing the drums on the Peter Hammill album Fool's Mate and percussion on In Camera.

Since moving from the UK to the United States, Whitehead has continued to work on album covers. He has also done murals and designed corporate logos. He is still most associated with Progressive Rock, and designed the 2000 logo for NEARfest.