Bob Cato was a graphic designer whose work in record album cover design contributed to the development of music and popular culture for five decades.
Education
As a teenager, he studied with Mexican painters Pablo O"Higgins and José Clemente Orozco. Moving to Philadelphia in 1947, Cato studied with renowned art director and magazine designer Alexey Brodovich, eventually becoming Brodovitch"s assistant at Harper"s Bazaar.
Career
He was vice president of creative services at Columbia Records, and later at United Artists. Bob Cato was raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. A Quaker, Cato was imprisoned during World World War II as a conscientious objector.
He then lived in Chicago, studying with László Moholy-Nagy of the Bauhaus school.
Cato painted and exhibited throughout the 1940s and 1950s, while serving as art director at Dance, Glamour, Junior. Bazaar and Theatre Arts magazines.
Cato began working in the music industry in 1959 at Columbia Records, becoming vice president of creative services there and later at United Artists. In 1966, he directed the Columbia Broadcasting System-television miniseries Playback, featuring Leonard Bernstein, Miles Davis, John Gielgud, Johnny Mathis and Igor Stravinsky.
In 1997, the Academy awarded Cato the President"s Merit Award.
Bob Cato was married to Kate Jennings, an Australian writer, poet and novelist, in 1988. He died as a result of complications of Alzheimer"s disease in 1999.