Aladdin Sane: David Bowie, Brian Duffy and that iconic photograph
In 1973 photographer Brian Duffy took a photograph of David Bowie that would become one of the most iconic images in music history.
The photograph – a result of Bowie’s obsession with image, and Duffy’s background in fashion photography, where he worked with publications including British Vogue – became the album cover for Bowie’s Aladdin Sane.
In this video, filmed at the Southbank Centre’s 2023 exhibition celebrating 50 years of that shoot, Geoff Marsh and Chris Duffy (son of Brian) provide further context to the origins of the photograph, and how it would lead to the pair working together to produce three further Bowie album covers.
They also look at how the iconography of the Aladdin Sane album cover stuck in the public consciousness, with pastiches of the image continuing to appear in pop culture decades later.
‘Right from the time he was 15 or 16, David Bowie was obsessed with the image of his bands, and promoting the band and particularly promoting himself’
Geoff Marsh