The cover of Jefferson Starship’s 1976 album ‘Spitfire’ by Shusei Nagaoka. You may not know Japanese artist Shusei Nagaoka by name, but there is no doubt that you have seen his colorful sci-fi art that has graced the covers of albums by Jefferson Starship, ELO, electronic pioneer Giorgio Moroder and Earth, Wind & Fire, just to name a scant few. Nagaoka’s artwork has also appeared in countless publications from Hustler to National Geographic. Nagaoka is probably best known for his album art—one of his most impactful being the cover of the 1977 album by Electric Light Orchestra, Out of the Blue which unless you were living under a rock back in the 1970s you’ve seen. The art for Out of the Blue is highly representative of Nagaoka’s style, artistic vision and use of arresting color schemes. Born in Nagasaki in 1936, Nagaoka moved from the city to the island of Iki, thankfully escaping the devastation caused by the atomic bomb that was dropped by the U.S. on his birthplace in 1945. Though he did pursue a formal education for a time at Musashino Art University in Tokyo, the artist would eventually drop out choosing to follow...