In the mid-sixties, when Dutch artist Marte Röling was in her mid-twenties, she was commissioned to create a series of album covers for Fontana Records, a subsidiary of Philips Records.
Röling’s illustrated covers are some of the best illustrated album art I can think of. Especially as a series they withstood the test of time, and still feel relevant and beautiful.

Informed more by British Pop Art than by its American sister, the series of covers combines portraits with a Robert Indiana-esque (American Pop, yes, I know) stencil font. Röling’s signature heavy black lines, shadowed with colored lines, peppered with a sprinkle of various cultural references incorporated in the portraits (from fashion illustration to Egyptian art to Oceanic facial tattoos), are so distinct, that it’s weird that I never saw them as award winners in any old Graphis Annuals. But come to think of it, in the sixties, professional recognition was all about the dudes, so misogyny may have just a little bit to do with it.

Röling did some more graphic work throughout the seventies, and stuck with the clean line drawing/stencil type combo. Her Red Cross stamps are a good example. I love the one that just has the red cross with type. If that isn’t timeless, please tell me what is.

She moved on to become the grand dame of commissioned public sculptures and monumental installations in the Netherlands. It’s the older graphic stuff however, that I’m digging.