The Most Expensive Album Art Ever Sold?

The original image for David Bowie’s 1973 Aladdin Sane album could become the most expensive album artwork ever sold when it goes under the hammer later this month.

Credit: Bonhams

Experts think that the famous picture of Bowie with a lightning bolt across his face could beat the record set by Led Zeppelin’s debut album artwork, which sold for $325,000 in 2020. It featured a black-and-white ink illustration from a photograph of the Hindenburg disaster, taken by Sam Shere in 1937.

Bowie's Aladdin Sane cover photo was shot by Brian Duffy, one of the highly influential trio - along with David Bailey and Terence Donovan - who captured London as a cultural capital in the 1960s. The striking image has become known as the 'Mona Lisa of Pop' and is one of the most recognisable images of all time. It's one of 35 items from the Duffy archive being sold by Bonhams on 22 October.

Claire Tole-Moir, Bonhams’ head of popular culture, said when most people thought of Bowie it was Duffy’s image that flashed in their mind’s eye, and because of its status the original artwork could set a new benchmark.

In the past decade Duffy’s image of Bowie has been seen by thousands of people around the world. The Duffy archive loaned the Aladdin Sane artwork to the V&A for its world-touring David Bowie Is exhibition, which became the V&A’s most visited international touring show in its 165-year history.

In mid-September, the V&A East Storehouse in London opened a new Bowie archive.