Lou Beach was born in Gottingen, Germany in 1947, and his name is actually the phonetic pronounciation of his real last name, Lubicz. His Polish parents were unwilling guests of the Nazis--his father a prisoner-of-war, his mother a slave laborer. In the 1970’s, he began his career as a record cover illustrator. He is happily married, with two children, and lives in an old California home with two dogs and three cats.

A delightful overview of this award-winning illustrator’s art. Over the last 30 years his work has been featured in major magazines as well as on countless record and cd packages, book covers and advertisements. A much-admired pop icon of Los Angeles’s wild era of illustration in the 1970s and 80s, Lou Beach has remained a vital force in today’s competitive world of popular art, creating imagery for clients as diverse as WSJ, NYT, The Utne Reader, MCA Records, Random House, McGraw-Hill and Houghton-Mifflin among others. A tour of this self-taught collagist’s mind reveals a delight in visual puns and a direct link to such greats of the medium as Hannah Hoch, George Heartfield, Max Ernst, Romare Beardon and Tadanori Yokoo as well as influences from popular culture. His collages have also landed on record covers for Weather Report [Grammy nomination],The Carpenters, The Neville Brothers, Dave Alvin, Dr. John, Ethel Merman and Blink 182.