Jay Maisel

Who is Jay Maisel?

Jay Maisel is an American photographer. His awards include the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Society of Media Photographers, and the Infinity Award of the International Center of Photography.

Maisel studied painting and graphic design at Manhattan's Cooper Union and at Yale University, and became a photographer in 1954.

One of Maisel's most known images is his photograph of Miles Davis that appeared on the cover of Davis's album Kind of Blue. In 2009, Andy Baio created an image based on the original Kind of Blue album cover for the cover of a chiptune tribute album titled "Kind of Bloop". Attorneys representing Maisel demanded damages and that the resulting image be removed from the chiptune album, resulting in an out-of-court settlement of $32,500 from Baio.

Maisel lives with his family in the historic Germania Bank Building in lower Manhattan. Built in 1898, the 35,000-square-foot single-family mansion contains 72 rooms over six floors. Maisel purchased the building in 1966 for $102,000 when the neighborhood was in severe decline. The building's value estimated at $30 to $50 million in 2008. New York Magazine called it "maybe the greatest real-estate coup of all time."