David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane cover set to break album art record

The original artwork for David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane album is going up for auction and could become the most expensive album cover ever sold.

The piece, expected to sell for up to £300,000, was shot by photographer Brian Duffy, who was part of the influential 1960s photography trio alongside David Bailey and Terence Donovan.

It is one of 35 items from the Duffy archive being sold by Bonhams, including the original Hasselblad camera used for the shoot, a rare contact sheet (one of only two known), and the stool Bowie sat on during the session.

The inside artwork from the original album release is also being auctioned separately, with an estimated price of £150,000 to £200,000. It features a full-length image of Bowie as Aladdin Sane and was used as a centrefold in the first 5,000 copies of the record.

The auction will take place on October 22.

If sold at the expected price, the Aladdin Sane artwork would beat the current record of $325,000 set by Led Zeppelin’s debut album cover in 2020.

Claire Tole-Moir, Bonhams’ head of popular culture, said Duffy’s photo is the one most people associate with Bowie and that its iconic status could set a new record.

The image has been exhibited around the world, including stops in London, Tokyo, Paris, New York, and Berlin as part of the V&A’s touring Bowie exhibition.

“It’s a dye transfer print, which is basically one of the highest-quality types of prints that you can do,” said Tole-Moir to the Guardian. “And at the time of its creation in 1973, it was the most expensive process that was really, really costly. So to have created it at that time was already a privilege.”