De Kooning did a book cover too, but should he have?

1959 first edition of Harold Rosenberg's "The Tradition of the New", cover designed by artist Willem De Kooning.

I love that De Kooning did this cover for The Tradition of the New, but is it honestly successful as such? I don't think so. 

Fine art is used extensively on book covers, but when it's successful I think more-often-than-not it's a stand-alone work presented within a separate framework designed to hold the title, author, etc... like Penguin's or NYRB's great series of classics. Rarely do fine artists handle the lettering as well. Equally rare is to have the artwork created specifically for the book, rather than it being existing artwork that is paired perfectly with the book (the job and special talent of great art directors and designers). These distinctions are fundamentally ones of artwork vs. illustration. So, when last night's episode of Bravo's "Work of Art" reality television show was based on the fine art contestants designing book covers, I was dubious. And in the end, with one notable (I think excellent) exception, I think my skepticism was proven -- link to the work from Bravo TV's "Work of Art".

From our Twitter feed:

Despite crossover btwn my 2 favorite things--art & books--I'm skeptical about tonight's #workofart designing Penguin Classics book covers.

Loved #workofart TIME MACHINE cover, but rest were awful incl 2nd place DRACULA which would be laughed out of any respectable design school.