This limited edition archival inkjet print revisits and reassembles the artwork created by Hipgnosis for the last album that Genesis would record with Peter Gabriel at the helm.

The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway was a change in artistic direction and could be described as the soundtrack to an unmade film, almost operatic in its scope. It concerns the strange journey of Rael, a New York City punk who goes through a series of metamorphoses and meets up with various strange characters along the way. The band accompanied this change in musical direction with a change of visual direction, bringing Hipgnosis their first opportunity to work with Peter Gabriel. Storm explained to Hypergallery how Hipgnosis responded to this challenge:

“We conceived of a story board or comic strip, but made of photographs…..a major part of this involved the character stepping outside the comic strip and taking a detached view, looking back at this life, a step considered necessary in the process of self-realisation. Thus the main character is seen literally stepping out of the picture, leaving a man-shaped white hole in his wake.”

All the imagery was photographed in black and white negative, and the resulting prints were reassembled, adjusted in size, comped together and recopied to provide a single flat artwork. This is a monstrously difficult and painstaking process before the era of computers, but no less worth it. For a long while there was a mockup of this artwork on the wall at StormStudios, as he contemplated how to approach the layout for this print.

We think this is a stunning piece of work that celebrates a very special piece of musical and artistic history.

Signed by: Aubrey Powell, Storm Thorgerson and Peter Gabriel

Image size: 19.5 x 22.5 inches / Paper size: 26.5 x 33.5 inches

Edition size: 99

Print type: Archival Inkjet (Giclée)

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