The guide February 27, 2010

George Lois’s incredible Esquire covers

Lois's magazine work was showcased at New York's MoMA last year and is now out in book form. See some of his iconic work here.

George Lois gallery: Andy Warhol — Andy Warhol drowning in a can of Campbell's soup: "This cover has become a symbol of Esquire's juxtaposition of the celebration of pop culture...with the deconstruction of celebrity"
© George Lois/Esquire Photograph: guardian.co.uk

George Lois gallery: Muhammed Ali — Muhammad Ali poses as a martyr for refusing to fight in the Vietnam war and the cover becomes a protest poster hung in college dorms all over America
© George Lois/Esquire Photograph: guardian.co.uk

George Lois: George Lois Esquire cover from MOMA exhibition — Virni Lisi, about to debut in How to Murder Your Wife with Jack Lemmon, lathers up in this humorous cover pegged to an article on the masculinisation of women
© George Lois/Esquire Photograph: guardian.co.uk

George Lois gallery: JFK — Lois's trompe l'oeil cover of Kennedy in tears was published seven months after the assassination, and accompanied an article that attempted to objectify Kennedy at a time when America was still traumatised by the murder
© George Lois/Esquire Photograph: guardian.co.uk

George Lois: George Lois Esquire cover from MOMA exhibition — This issue has Lois exposing the high end fashion shoot
© George Lois/Esquire Photograph: guardian.co.uk

George Lois: George Lois Esquire cover from MOMA exhibition — By simply using the words of an American soldier in Vietnam in 1966, Lois makes clear the magazine's view of America's involvement in the war
© George Lois/Esquire Photograph: guardian.co.uk

George Lois: George Lois Esquire cover from MOMA exhibition — Ursula Andress dramatizes violence against women, a subject at the time considered taboo, and a cover which even shocked the National Organization for Women
© George Lois/Esquire Photograph: guardian.co.uk

George Lois gallery: Richard Nixon — A classic composite cover satirising Nixon in his run up to the 1968 election
© George Lois/Esquire Photograph: guardian.co.uk

George Lois: George Lois Esquire cover from MOMA exhibition — Lois's refusal to deliver a typical cover girl for an issue that led with a travel feature ended up with a beauty pageant of forty stewardesses from fifteen international airlines. It became one of Esquire's biggest selling issues on the newsstands
© George Lois/Esquire Photograph: guardian.co.uk

George Lois gallery: Sonny Liston — In December 1963 Sonny Liston becomes the first black Santa and "All hell broke loose when the cover came out."
© George Lois/Esquire Photograph: guardian.co.uk

George Lois: George Lois Esquire cover from MOMA exhibition — On the cover of Esquire's definitive 35th anniversary issue, Lois shows the three assassinated American leaders; John F Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King hauntingly watching over the Arlington National Cemetery
© George Lois/Esquire Photograph: guardian.co.uk

George Lois: George Lois Esquire cover from MOMA exhibition — This is what George Lois calls his second "cheesecake cover"
© George Lois/Esquire Photograph: guardian.co.uk

George Lois: George Lois Esquire cover from MOMA exhibition — A reference to Truman Capote's infamous 1966 masked ball when he invited 540 of his closest friends!
© George Lois/Esquire Photograph: guardian.co.uk

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