John Hendrickson Berg (1932 – 2015) was an American art director best known for his works at Columbia Records. Throughout his career, he won four Grammy Awards out of twenty-six nominations.
Berg was born in Brooklyn and grew up in the Flatbush neighborhood, where he attended Erasmus Hall High School. While in high school, Berg drew cartoons for the school newspaper. Upon graduation, he took classes at the Cooper Union. After earning his degree, he worked for Doyle Dane Bernbach and Esquire. Berg was hired by Columbia Records in 1961 and retired from the label with the title of vice president in 1985. In two and a half decades with Columbia, Berg designed five Grammy Award-winning album covers: The Barbra Streisand Album in 1964, Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits in 1968, Underground in 1969, Chicago X in 1977, and Love Notes in 1978.
Berg was quite literally the rock star of art directors—winner of Grammy Awards for his creative supervision at Columbia Records on some of the most iconic album covers of all time, from Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” to “The Barbra Streisand Album.”The East Hampton resident was a pioneer, an innovator in his field, and a loving husband and father at home.
Berg oversaw the production of more than 5,000 records, earning Grammy Awards not to mention 29 other nods over the span of his career.
When Christina Strassfield, museum director and chief curator of Guild Hall in East Hampton, saw his body of work in 2012, she knew she had to display it. Of the retrospective, Mr. Berg had said it felt like being at his own funeral, Ms. Godfrey recalled, though the comment was meant in good fun.
“I knew his work before I ever knew his name, which is amazing,” Ms. Strassfield said. “Durell asked me to take a look at it. And then, when I went to their home, he was so charming, really such a nice person. He was pulling out these record albums. I was just, ‘Oh my gosh!’ As a child in the Bronx, we would get our allowance on Fridays, and I would go straight to the record department at Corvette’s, where I had seen those images. That meeting brought back all those incredible memories. I’ll never forget when he said that it was great that I remembered the covers even though I couldn’t remember the music.”
Before MTV began broadcasting musicians in living color within elaborately choreographed music videos, all consumers had was album art. Anyone who loved album art growing up remembers how exciting it was to open any two-fold set to find the unexpected surprises that came when the gatefold was laid flat, such as posters or lyric sheets.
That was an invention of Mr. Berg. The first was Bob Dylan’s “Blonde on Blonde,” in which the two-record set’s sleeve opened up to expose a vertical photo of Dylan. It was a move that cemented Mr. Berg’s career as a titan of art direction.
His chiseled style encompassed a sophisticated use of typography that was well before its time, and photos cropped in unexpected ways that exuded flirtatious humor and even iconoclastic appeal.
Whether it was Chicago or Vivaldi, Mr. Berg would listen to the album first, and then build a concept from the music into a memorable story.
“Back then, it was a big production. There was no Photoshop or Illustrator. They had to build an incredible set for that cover with chickens and cows. It was a massive operation and on location.”
Columbia Records was absorbed by Sony in 1985 and, that same year, Mr. Berg’s retirement from his position as a vice president followed a massive cleaning of house that “put John out to pasture.” . He never embraced computers, the digital age was on the horizon and CDs were quickly becoming the norm, making album art less and less important.
Berg is survived by a daughter, Kristina, who is a graphic designer in Manhattan. A son, Lars, died in 1984—31 years before his father, to the day.
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| Mr. John Berg |
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At work
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| John Berg with the 40th anniversary poster |
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| 1963, The Barba Streisand Album, Barba Streisand |
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1965, Turn! Turn! Turn! The Byrds
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1966, Blonde on Blonde, Bob Dylan
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| 1966, Byrdland, Charlie Byrd |
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| 1967, Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits |
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| 1968, Cheap Thrills, Big Brother and the Holding Company |
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| 1968, John Wesley Harding, Bob Dylan |
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| 1968, Underground, Thelonius Monk |
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| 1970, Bitches Brew, Miles Davis |
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| 1970, Bridge Over Troubled Water, Simon & Garfunkel |
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| 1971, BS&T 4, Blood, Sweat & Tears |
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| 1971, Chicago V, Chicago |
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| 1972, Blood, Sweat & Tears Greatest Hits |
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| 1972, Songs Of Love And Hate, Leonard Cohen |
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| 1972, The World of Donovan |
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| 1972, They Only Come Out At Night, The Edgar Winter Group |
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| 1973, Fresh, Sly and the Family Stone |
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1973, Stravinsky Conducts, The Columbia Symphony Orchestra
Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) |
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1973, The Guitars That Destroyed The World
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| 1974, Chicago VII, Chicago |
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| 1974, Santana’s Greatest Hits, Santana |
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1975, Born to run, Bruce Springsteen
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| 1976, Chicago X, Chicago |
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| 1976, Salongo, Ramsey Lewis |
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| 1976, Wired, Jeff Beck |
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1977, Love Notes , Ramsey Lewis
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| 1977, Chicago XI, Chicago |
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| 1977, Heads, Bob James |
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| 1978, Sunny side up, (John Berg & Paula Scher) |
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| 1979, Ramsey, Ramsey Lewis |
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| 1980, Chicago XIV, Chicago |
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1981, Get Lucky, Loverboy
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| 1985, Big Girls Don't Cry, The Weather Girls |
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