NEW YORK -- Bob Cato, who helped turn record album covers into a form of contemporary art and won two Grammy Awards for his designs, died Friday due to complications of Alzheimer's disease. He was 75.
Cato joined CBS-Columbia Records in 1960, serving as art director and vice president of creative services for 10 years. He worked with musicians including Miles Davis, Janis Joplin and Leonard Bernstein and painters Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol.His cover designs for Barbra Streisand's "People" (1964) and "Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits" (1967) won him Grammys from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Cata received the academy's President's Merit award in 1997.
His career spanned 50 years, beginning in 1947 at Harper's Bazaar magazine. There he was exposed to a mixture of photography, Modernist art, open space and sharp typography that would help define his later work.
His final 10 years were largely devoted to fine art, photography and producing books, including "Joyce Images" (1994).