Spring 2025
Henrietta Condak: Mistress of Masterworks
Working in-house for CBS, this prolific art director combined illustration, lettering, typography and photography to make a significant body of design for serious music. By Elizabeth Resnick [EXTRACT]
Art is a visual medium, while music is an auditory one, but both tell stories and convey emotions that can converge in album cover design. From 1963 to 1984, American graphic designer Henrietta Condak created more than 400 visually striking covers for Columbia Masterworks while working in-house for the company.
In 1980, Columbia Masterworks (a record label started in 1924 by Columbia Records) was separated from the Columbia label and renamed CBS Masterworks. If the work of Henrietta Condak is unfamiliar to a contemporary audience, it is because her life revolved around family and work, and she was not interested in self-promotion or industry politics. Pervasive sexism, perpetuated and reinforced through a male perspective, intentionally sidelined the contributions of women, rendering their work invisible.
Henrietta Marie Amellio was born on 3 March 1934, in New York City, the fourth of seven children…
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By 1976, Condak transitioned to full time senior art director for Masterworks – the classical music label of Columbia Records. ‘That particular job suited my creative sensibility. I met and worked with many talented and gifted artists, including Leonard Bernstein, Philip Glass, Wynton Marsalis, Yo-Yo Ma and Isaac Stern. I could hire great photographers such as Irving Penn and Richard Avedon. The talent pool of illustrators available was awesome.’ Condak worked with David Levine, Edward Sorel, Robert Weaver, Robert Van Nutt, John Alcorn, Milton Glaser and many others, including husband Cliff.
The Cuckoo and The Nightingale, Four Favorite Handel Organ Concertos, Columbia Masterworks, 1963. Artwork and cover design by Henrietta Condak. Lettering by Irene Trivas. All album covers: art direction and design by Henrietta Condak.
Condak masterfully married art and music in her classical album cover designs from the beginning. A prime example is the 1963 cover of The Cuckoo and the Nightingale: Four Favorite Handel Organ Concertos – an organ concerto in four movements. The second movement uses bird song motifs corresponding to the birds of the title. Duplicated from old Victorian engravings, hand-coloured bird illustrations incorporating smaller images of other birds suggest the renewal of life in springtime and evoke feelings of rejuvenation, rebirth and transformation. A flowery, hand-drawn script creates a woodland environment that anchors the birds on their perch. The lettering is by Irene Trivas (1930-2012), an illustrator who produced more than 100 books for children.
In 1965, Condak was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Classical Album Cover category …
Elizabeth Resnick, design educator, curator, writer, Massachusetts, US
Read the full version in Eye
no. 108 vol. 27, 2025
Thank you to Henrietta and her daughter, Christina Condak, Paula Scher, Louise Fili, Richard Wilde and Steven Heller for their contributions to this article.
Saint-Saëns Piano Concertos, No. 1 in D Major, No. 5 in F Major, Columbia Masterworks, 1976. Left. Stravinsky conducts his Agon and Canticum Sacrum, Columbia Odyssey, 1979. Both albums: artwork by Clifford Condak. On working with her husband, Henrietta said: ‘He was happy for the work even though it was a challenge for a painter to be an illustrator.’
Glassworks by Philip Glass, CBS, 1982. Cover photo: John Paul Endress. This well marketed release (co-producer Kurt Munkacsi even made a special ‘Walkman’ mix for cassettes) remains Glass’s best-selling record to date.
Scenes in the City
by Branford Marsalis, CBS / Columbia, 1984. Photography: Duane Michals. ‘One of the first things I learned about LPs,’ said Condak, ‘was that all titles had to be positioned in the top third of the album. Customers would flip albums in music store bins like index cards, so the name of each album had to be displayed prominently.’
Billie Holiday: God Bless the Child, CBS, 1972. Artwork by Clifford Condak. Art direction and design by Henrietta Condak.
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