Brian Duffy collaborated with David Bowie over nine years to produce some of the most iconic images of Bowie in our visual culture. The present work derives from a shoot to create the image of Bowie as Aladdin Sane in January 1973. This moment has become one of the most mythologised in music history.

Here, Duffy’s image of Bowie as Aladdin Sane fuses glam rock, fashion, and fine art into a single frame. Widely known as the ‘Mona Lisa of Pop’, this iconic image marked Bowie’s metamorphosis from Ziggy Stardust into a new, fractured persona, redefining the visual language of popular culture. Works from this series are held in the permanent collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Duffy's Aladdin Sane Contact Sheet comprises sixteen frames arranged around the definitive final image; it reveals the creative journey, shifts in expression, and unreleased moments that preceded the making of an icon. While the single photograph of Bowie as Aladdin Sane presents one image frozen in time, the contact sheet offers the entire creative process, shared between Duffy’s eye and Bowie’s transformation, frame by frame; an aesthetic intimacy that is truly exceptional.