Limited edition artist prints of Alfreda Benge’s illustrations for Robert Wyatt albums Rock Bottom and Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard are being issued to coincide with the release of the new authorised biography of Wyatt written by Marcus O’Dair.

Appearing on high quality acid-free paper, roughly 24” square in a limited edition of 100, signed by both Robert and Alfie they are being sold by the album cover gallery, Hypergallery, at an introductory price of £165 (£198 including VAT).

Alfie has done the artwork for every Robert Wyatt record since Rock Bottom, apart from ‘Shipbuilding’. O’Dair writes in Different Every Time: “As an artist in her own right, Alfie’s output has been confined to occasional painting exhibitions and magazine illustrations, a couple of children’s books with Ivor Cutler, and album covers for a handful of acts – Fred Frith, Annette Peacock, Welsh psych folk group Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, the French band Klimperei. The re-release of all Robert’s albums offered a chance to reappraise the album covers as an unusually coherent body of work: for a musician to work with the same art designer over what is now four decades is almost unprecedented. Like Robert’s music, Alfie’s covers combined diversity with consistency, the two artforms evolving absolutely in parallel from one release to the next.”

Robert Wyatt is taking part in a question and answer session with Marcus O’Dair at the QEH, London on 23 November where some special guests will perform Wyatt’s music. 

Prints of the covers of Rock Bottom and Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard, above