Scary Monsters Contact Sheet Demi Press Open Edition

This open edition print by Brian Duffy gives collectors the chance to own an authenticated, beautifully produced print from the original photoshoot for the Scary Monsters album. The print gives us the chance to see the Pierrot concept unadulterated, before it was completely reworked as an illustrative piece by Edward Bell. It also takes us straight into the music video for Ashes to Ashes for which the look was recreated.

Photo Duffy © Duffy Archive

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Taken by Duffy during the last of the Five Sessions with David Bowie in 1980. By this time, Duffy was winding down his photographic career. His studio was no longer filled with cameras, lights and famous faces of the era. Duffy turned to his son Chris for a venue to shoot David Bowie, the only person who could persuade him to get back behind the lens.

Bowie asked costumer Natasha Korniloff to make him ‘The most beautiful clown in the circus.’ His New Romantic/Commedia Dell’Arte variant outfit was a throwback to his earliest costume experience, starring in Lindsay Kemp’s Pierrot In Turquoise – a costume also designed by the late Natasha Korniloff.

Bowie began to pose as the perfect Pierrot, throughout the session distressing his look until he was reduced to a dishevelled, smeared, smoking clown.

Much like the Lodger shoot little over a year before, Bowie had employed Duffy as the photographer in collaboration with a graphic artist, a position filled this time by Edward Bell who Duffy had previously introduced to Bowie. After the shoot, Duffy took his chosen image to Edward Bell to add his graphic contribution.

In the final cover image Duffy’s image was almost completely obscured by Bell’s painting. This pristine colour depiction of Bowie shows the full detail of Kornilof’s intricate costume and phenomenal makeup by Richard Sharah.

Each print is embossed with the Duffy Archive stamp and mounted. Printed with Epson K3 Ultrachrome inks.

Handmade in the archive with an embossed Duffy Archive stamp and rear stamped with info sticker. Each print is also rubber stamped on the reverse with a replica of Duffy’s original studio logo and sealed in a clear cellophane wrapper.

Available with a choice of black or white mount, which fits into standard 50 x 50cm frame.

Prints are shipped flat, direct from the Duffy Archive.