Brautigam was born on September 12th, 1946 in Paterson, New Jersey. He attended and graduated from The School of Visual Arts in New York City in 1971. Throughout his 35 year career, he painted over 3,000 book and record covers as well as numerous advertisements and magazine covers.

His paperback cover art for Stephen King's The Stand won "Cover of the Year" by the Marketing Bestsellers in 1980 and he is often credited for pioneering the use of black paint on book illustrations. A technique that revolutionized paperback and hardcover jacket illustrations forever.

The first edition of another Stephen King novel, 1979's Night Shift also featured Brautigam's artwork. As explained by Suntup Press, "...the first edition is identified by the outermost front cover's "keyholes," which open up to a full page color step back graphic underneath."

By the mid '80s, it was abundantly clear that Brautigam had a talent for passionately capturing another artist's work with his own original artwork. However, prior to his album artwork in the latter half of the '80s, Brautigam had been commissioned to do the album covers for James Brown's The Payback(1973) and Reality (1974) and Chuck Berry's punny Rockitcover in 1979.

After creating the artwork for Metal Church's The Darkin 1986, his dalliance with hard rock and metal really took off. He is credited for the cover art on albums by Ace Frehley, Newcity Rockers, Mötley Crüe (as mentioned above), AC/DC, and numerous Anthrax, and Vicious Rumours releases. Brautigam continued to do album cover art and record sleeves until the late 90s, when the industry underwent changes in technology and cover art became easier to produce.

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