The cover of a record is the first image you associate with the music inside, the artwork is a crucial part of the overall aesthetic of the product, a question of advertising. The importance of cover design was such that some artists specialised or gained fame through their work but my aim here is allusions, imitations and even rip-off of famous works of art, anything is welcome... paintings, sculpture, movies, photos. Inspired by Jackson Pollock, the cover displays a work by John Squire.
I also detect an influence of Ad Reinhardt and Robert Rauschenberg in the cover of "Smell the Glove."
The art is not all that famous but The Pogues Rum Sodomy & the Lash cover artwork is based on a painting by Jean-Louis-André-Théodore Géricault The Raft of the Medusa (1819)
Do rear covers count? If so, then the reverse of David Ackles' American Gothic (no prizes for guessing what it references). The only jpg I could find would overwhelm the page so here's a link... https://songsfromsodeep.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/american-gothic.jpg
Mark Knopfler's Kill to Get Crimson uses Four Lambrettas and Three Portraits of Janet Churchman by John Bratby from 1958 The back of the gatefold completes the image.
The Deep Purple Stormbringer cover art (as well as Siouxie & the Banshees' Tinderbox) was based on one of the most famous photos in the history of storm chasing.
Because the original Beatles cover IS a work of art, I give you.... Granted, it got relegated to the gatefold, but it was intended as the cover....
The cover of Deep Purple '69 ("April") album actually is a segmented illustration from Hieronymus Bosch's painting "The Garden of Earthly Delights". The original painting is in color but picture on the cover is in monochrome due a printing error to the original layout, and the band opted to keep it this way.
