Brian Duffy and the Making of ‘Aladdin Sane’
Alongside his contemporaries, David Bailey and Terence Donovan, Brian Duffy revolutionised the photography, design and fashions of post-war London. In the increasingly liberated environment of the 1960s, Duffy became one of the most celebrated photographers of the era. However, it was his collaborations with David Bowie, beginning in 1972, which proved to be some of the photographer’s most influential work.
Rarely has a portrait on an album cover become the definitive image of one man. Rarely has an image become known as a cultural icon, or popularly known as The Mona Lisa of Pop.
Duffy photographed Bowie over five sessions, resulting in a number of recognisable images of the musician, taken to create the artworks for Bowie’s successive album covers. The second of these five sessions was for Bowie’s ‘Aladdin Sane’ album in January 1973. Commissioned by Tony Defries, Bowie’s manager, Duffy was instructed to produce an image that would propel Bowie to superstardom.
Photographed at Duffy’s studio in Primrose Hill, London, Bowie had decided upon the shocking lightning bolt to cover his face for the shoot. The French make-up artist Pierre Laroche began drawing a tiny bolt across Bowie’s forehead before Duffy stopped him, drawing the outline of a much larger and dramatic lightning bolt over Bowie’s eye and cheek, which Laroche then filled in with lipstick. The resulting image is dynamic, futuristic and achieved the desired effect of catapulting Bowie’s career.
The photographs from this shoot have since become some of the most important and enduring of the musician, as well as the defining images of Duffy and Bowie’s creative relationship.
FeaturedBrian Duffy
The ArtistCutting-edge photographer and film producer, Brian Duffy, was a blizzard of talent and contradictions, best remembered for his fashion and portrait photography of the 1960s and 1970s.
