Robert G. Cato (September 5, 1923 – March 19, 1999) was an American

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographers As in other ...

and graphic designer whose work in record album cover design contributed to the development of music and popular culture for five decades. He was vice president of creative services at Columbia Records, and later at

United Artists United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the stud ...

Biography

Bob Cato was born in 1923 to Cuban immigrant Ysabel Soto and Robert Bailey Cato in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

, Louisiana. As a teenager, he studied with Mexican painters

Pablo O'Higgins Pablo Esteban O'Higgins (born Paul Higgins Stevenson; March 1, 1904 - July 16, 1983) was an American-Mexican artist, muralist and illustrator. Early life and education Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, O'Higgins was raised there and in San Diego, C ...

and José Clemente Orozco. A Quaker, Cato was imprisoned during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

as a conscientious objector. He then lived in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, studying with

László Moholy-Nagy László Moholy-Nagy (; ; born László Weisz; July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the ...

of the

Bauhaus school The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 2009 ...

. Moving to

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

in 1947, Cato studied with renowned art director and magazine designer

Alexey Brodovitch Alexey Vyacheslavovich Brodovitch (also Brodovich; be, Аляксей Брадовіч, russian: Алексе́й Вячесла́вович Бродо́вич; 1898 – April 15, 1971) was a Russian-born American photographer, designer ...

, eventually becoming Brodovitch's assistant at '' Harper's Bazaar''. Cato painted and exhibited throughout the 1940s and 1950s, while serving as art director at ''Dance'', ''Glamour'', ''Jr. Bazaar'' and ''Theatre Arts'' magazines. Cato began working in the music industry in 1959 at Columbia Records, becoming vice president of creative services there and later at United Artists. During the next 20 years, he designed and oversaw hundreds of albums for dozens of artists, forging lasting relationships with many, including The Band, Johnny Cash,

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of musi ...

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

, George Harrison, Janis Joplin, and

Van Morrison Sir George Ivan Morrison (born 31 August 1945), known professionally as Van Morrison, is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose recording career spans seven decades. He has won two Grammy Awards. As a teenager in t ...

. In 1966, he directed the CBS-TV miniseries ''Playback'', featuring Leonard Bernstein, Miles Davis,

John Gielgud Sir Arthur John Gielgud, (; 14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the Brit ...

, Johnny Mathis, and Igor Stravinsky. He also served for many years on the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences advisory council. In 1997, the Academy awarded Cato the President's Merit Award. Among Cato's other accomplishments was a redesign of '' McCalls'', art directorships of ''Ladies' Home Journal'' and ''Jazz Review'', and while vice president of

Revlon Revlon, Inc. is an American multinational company dealing in cosmetics, skin care, fragrance, and personal care. The headquarters of Revlon was established in New York City on March 1, 1932, where it still remains. Revlon was founded by brother ...

, he conceived and designed the ''Charlie'' fragrance campaign, contracting Lauren Hutton to be the brand ambassador. He produced the book ''Joyce Images'' (1994), a collection of photos and art devoted to

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...

. Cato also taught, at the School of Visual Arts and the Rochester Institute of Technology. Bob Cato was married to

Kate Jennings Catherine Ruth Jennings (20 May 1948 – 1 May 2021) was an Australian poet, essayist, memoirist, and novelist. Biography Jennings grew up on a farm near Griffith, New South Wales. She attended the University of Sydney in the late 1960s, gradua ...

, an Australian writer, poet and novelist, in 1988. He died as a result of complications of Alzheimer's disease in 1999 in New York City. His archive is at the

Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) is a private research university in the town of Henrietta in the Rochester, New York, metropolitan area. The university offers undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional ...

Awards

* 1964,

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pr ...

s for Best Album Cover of the Year for

Barbra Streisand Barbara Joan "Barbra" Streisand (; born April 24, 1942) is an American singer, actress and director. With a career spanning over six decades, she has achieved success in multiple fields of entertainment, and is among the few performers awar ...

's ''

People A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...

'' *1968,

s for Best Album Cover of the Year for

- ''

Greatest Hits A greatest hits album or best-of album is a type of compilation album that collects popular and commercially successful songs by a particular artist or band. While greatest hits albums are typically supported by the artist, they can also be crea ...

'' *1997, President's Merit Award,

National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences The Recording Academy (formally the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences; abbreviated NARAS) is an American learned academy of musicians, producers, recording engineers, and other musical professionals. It is famous for its Grammy Aw ...

References

External links

Bob Cato Discography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cato, Bob 1923 births 1999 deaths Album-cover and concert-poster artists Artists from New Orleans Artists from Chicago Artists from Philadelphia American conscientious objectors American graphic designers Deaths from Alzheimer's disease 20th-century American photographers Columbia Records United Artists Records Deaths from dementia in New York (state)