Nancy Reiner

Nancy Beth Reiner [1] (April 21, 1942 - September 9, 2006)[2][3] was an artist whose work was featured as the cover art of various record albums between 1967 and 1971. She is most notable as the cover artist for The Cry of Love, the 1971 posthumous album by Jimi Hendrix.[4]

Early life

Nancy Reiner graduated in 1960 from Fieldston School in New York City, where she was known for her artistic talent.[5] She later attended Brandeis University.[6]

Michael Jeffrey and Jimi Hendrix

In 1966, Reiner was one of the girlfriends of Michael Jeffrey,[7] who was managing The Animals as of 1966 and subsequently co-managed Jimi Hendrix with ex-Animals bassist Chas Chandler, as of the fall of 1966. Through these circumstances, Reiner was accorded an opportunity to provide the artwork cover for Eric Is Here, an album attributed to Eric Burdon and The Animals, released in early 1967.

Reiner met Jimi Hendrix in 1967, through Michael Jeffrey. Hendrix and Reiner became close friends and occasional romantic partners,[7] from the time of their meeting until his death, in 1970.[8] Among their times together, Reiner and Hendrix traveled to the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, where Hendrix gave an historic performance, which Reiner sketched.[9] They also traveled together to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in December 1969, in relation to the 1969 drug trial and acquittal of Hendrix.[10] Hendrix and Reiner also wrote poetry together.[10]

Following the completion of her album cover illustration for Eric Is Here, in 1967, Reiner's art was associated with a number of record releases in 1967 and 1968. While her sketch art approach in Eric Is Here was also used in The Cry of Love, Reiner created a mix of sketch, painting and clay pieces for the album cover art to which she contributed during 1967 and 1968. A clay illustration was the basis of the cover art for a 1967 album by Jimmy Witherspoon with Brother Jack McDuff, The Blues Is Now, on Verve Records.[11] A similar approach was used by Reiner in her cover art for Getting Our Thing Together, an album by Brother Jack McDuff released on Cadet Records in late 1968.[12] On an earlier release of McDuff, Do It Now!, released by Atlantic Records in 1967, Reiner's cover is a pop-art portrait of McDuff.[13] She returned to sketch art for her cover of Alone, an album by jazz pianist Bill Evans, recorded in 1968,[14] and released on Verve Records.[15]

In 1969, Reiner completed a privately distributed book of drawings, The Adventures of JJ or How The Greatest Little Soul Band In The Land Jes Grooved and Grooved and Grooved, relating to singer J.J. Jackson, featuring a cartoon-like cover.[16] A similar style is found in "Phone Home", a formal cartoon by Reiner, published in the fall, 2000 issue of The Realist.[17]

Prior to his untimely death in September 1970, Jimi Hendrix had been planning his first complete album solely under his name, as opposed to his previously-released albums as the Jimi Hendrix Experience or Jimi Hendrix and the Band of Gypsys. The album was intended to be a double album, to be called First Rays of The New Rising Sun.[18] Hendrix had personally commissioned French artist Henri Martinez,[19] who was working in New York,[20] to create a painting to be used as the cover art. The painting, which was completed,[18] was not used. Following the death of Hendrix, it was determined by Michael Jeffrey that the first posthumous release would be a single album, with the cover being a sketch of Hendrix by Nancy Reiner. The album, now titled The Cry of Love, was released in 1971, to great success. Reiner's cover art for the album became widely known. Reiner retained the original cover art, which she eventually sold to the Hard Rock Café, due to economic needs and a concern for the preservation of the work.[21]

Later life

Reiner's public artistic output largely ceased, following The Cry of Love album cover. A source of income for Reiner later became the writing of "letters of authentication" in relation to items of Jimi Hendrix that were being sold at auction. She also wrote such letters in relation to auctioned items of Janis Joplin. It is unclear whether Reiner's authentication letters related exclusively or primarily to items that she personally owned.[22] Items associated with such letters continued to be sold after Reiner's death.[23]

Reiner resided on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.[10] In the 1990s, Reiner commenced writing her memoirs, which were ultimately released[24] to members of her family, following her death.

Death

Reiner died suddenly in 2006, from heart failure,[5] related to the effects of asthma.[25] At the time of her death, Reiner was impoverished, living on social assistance from the City of New York.[8] Her death notice, published in the New York Times, in which Reiner is described as an "artist and writer", was paid for by her "Fieldston Friends".[25] After her death, Reiner's apartment was emptied by the City of New York, as no next of kin came forward to do so.[22]

Reiner was survived by three half-siblings, from her father's second marriage, of whom she was aware, but whom she never met,[26] as well as a half-brother from her mother's second marriage.[27] Her half-siblings from her father began searching for Reiner prior to her death, but had only managed to locate Reiner three months after she had died.[2] Reiner's half-siblings from her father initiated a commemorative website in 2009, which was re-launched in 2016, including extracts from her memoirs.

References

1. Born Nancy Beth Schwartz, to Ned and Arlene Schwartz, who arrived in New York, via the Bahamas, in 1939. Ned Schwartz was a U.S. citizen who had been studying medicine in Freiberg, Germany and completed his studies in Bern, Switzerland. Schwartz changed his surname to Shaw and became an ophthalmologist, practising in Philadelphia. Nancy Schwartz was later known as Nancy Russek, the surname of her stepfather, Harold Russek. Harold Russek, associated with the prominent furrier and high-end Russeks department store in New York, was the uncle of photographer Diane Arbus, and also the family member who identified Arbus' body at the morgue, following her suicide. The surname Reiner came from her marriage, in June of 1961, to Stephen R. Reiner. Nancy Reiner chose to retain that surname for the balance of her life. Schwartz, Shaw and Russek: The Background Story. Cry of Love: Thoughts and Words of Nancy Reiner, Retrieved 2017-07-13; Dad.; Cry of Love: Thoughts and Words of Nancy Reiner, August 6, 2016. Retrieved 2017-07-17; Tough "love"; Cry of Love: Thoughts and Words of Nancy Reiner, August 13, 2016. Retrieved 2017-07-21; Patricia Bosworth, Diane Arbus: A Biography (Open Road Media, 2012). Retrieved 2017-07-21. Reiner: If I stood against the wall, I'd blend right in. Cry of Love: Thoughts and Words of Nancy Reiner, September 30, 2016. Retrieved 2017-07-13; Russek-Reiner wedding announcement, Irvington Gazette, June 29, 1961. Retrieved 2017-07-19.
2. The sister I never knew; Cry of Love, June 25, 2009. Retrieved 2017-07-10.
3. Death Record of Nancy B. Reiner; MooseRoots. Retrieved 2017-07-11.
4. Credits - The Cry of Love; Allmusic. Retrieved 2017-07-10.
5. Dan Rottenberg, Why I attend reunions: How to get a girl (and other lessons I learned at my high school reunions). Editor's Corner, Broad Street Review, October 9, 2012. Retrieved 2017-07-11. Rottenberg also notes that Reiner was a cheerleader and "the best dancer in our class". At the time of her death, according to Rottenberg, Reiner was in the midst of promoting the later life second career of fellow classmate and psychiatrist Peter Heiman, as an opera singer.
6. If I stood against the wall, I'd blend right in. Cry of Love: Thoughts and Words of Nancy Reiner, September 30, 2016. Retrieved 2017-07-13.
7. When words fail, love is the only language left; Cry of Love: Thoughts and Words of Nancy Reiner, June 8, 2017. Retrieved 2017-07-11.
8. The Background Story; Cry of Love: Thoughts and Words of Nancy Reiner. Retrieved 2017-07-11.
9. The sketch was retained by Reiner and ultimately sold to the Hard Rock Cafe. It has been subject to gallery presentations, such as the at the Dvorak Sec Gallery in Prague. See Michael Stein, Prague Gallery Rocks Hard, including a photo of the sketch; ceskapozice, January 15, 2012. Retrieved 2017-07-17.
10. Introducing Nancy. Cry of Love: Thoughts and Words of Nancy Reiner, July 15, 2016. Retrieved 2017-07-13.
11. Credits - The Blues Is Now; Discogs. Retrieved 2017-07-11.
12. Credits - Getting Our Thing Together; Discogs. Retrieved 2017-07-13.
13. Credits - Do It Now!; Discogs. Retrieved 2017-07-13.
14. Credits - Alone; Discogs. Retrieved 2017-07-17.
15. The cover art for the Bill Evans album was included in Meredith Morgan, The Best of Jazz Album Art. Paste, October 17, 2014. Retrieved 2017-07-21.
16. Tom Shaw, Instagram photos and text extracts; Retrieved 2017-07-22
17. Paul Krassner (ed.), The Realist Cartoons (Fantagraphics Books, 2016), p. 289. Retrieved 2017-07-22.
18. Henri Martinez painting of Jimi Hendrix, commissioned for album cover; Heritage Auctions. Retrieved 2017-07-14.
19. Also known as Henri Martinez-Kretchmer. See Notice of Exhibition, New York Magazine, October 26, 1970. Retrieved 2017-07-14.
20. Richard A. Brenner, My Life Seen Through Our Eyes. "St. Tropez with Henri, Summer of 1971". Retrieved 2017-07-14.
21. Album Covers. Cry of Love: Thoughts and Words of Nancy Reiner, July 25, 2016. Retrieved 2017-07-17. Reimer's offers to gift the work were rejected twice. As Reiner writes: "Years before that [selling the work to the Hard Rock Café] I had tried to give it away twice. But it was rejected twice. The first rejection came from my mother, who returned it because my grandmother 'didn’t like black people.' The second rejection came from my 'spiritual mother,' who is black. Her son threw it back at me saying, 'how dare you give my mother a picture of a hop-head rock star.' The drawing itself got treated with the same disrespect with which Jimi got treated. It’s almost religious."
22. LOAs for Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. Cry of Love: Thoughts and Words of Nancy Reiner, September 15, 2016. Retrieved 2017-07-19.
23. Such as a piece of a scarf worn by Hendrix, identified as having been "obtained from artist Nancy Reiner, his longtime friend, whose work included Jimi's 'Cry of Love' album cover". EBay advertisement, retrieved 2017-07-19.
24. Presumably by the Public Administrator of New York County.
25. Nancy Reiner death notice, New York Times, September 12, 2006. Retrieved 2017-07-19.
26. Dad.; Cry of Love: Thoughts and Words of Nancy Reiner, August 6, 2016. Retrieved 2017-07-21. Reiner did not know that Harold Russek was not her natural father until her mother told her, at the age of sixteen. Reiner never met her father, Ned Shaw/Schwartz, who died in 1971. After learning of their existence, Reiner attempted to connect with her father and half-siblings, but was rebuffed by both her father and his second wife. Their children were also prohibited from contacting Reiner.
27. Reiner's half-brother, William "Billy" Russek, was not interested in contacting his half-siblings after her death, when invited by a third party: Tough "love";Cry of Love: Thoughts and Words of Nancy Reiner, August 13, 2016. Retrieved 2017-07-21. Reiner had been "given away" by her brother at the time of her marriage, since by that time (1961) Reiner's mother and stepfather had divorced. Stepfather Harold Russek did not attending the wedding: Russek-Reiner wedding announcement, Irvington Gazette, June 29, 1961. Retrieved 2017-07-21.