MICHEL H - David Bowie Los Angeles 1990

Title: Michel Haddi - David Bowie, Los Angeles, 1990

Technique: Photography

Dimensions: 80x60 cm

Edition: Limited to 15 copies

Certificate: A signed and numbered certificate of authenticity from the artist is provided

About the Bowie Series:

Los Angeles, the 1990s, in my studio in Venice Beach. I was preparing a few shoots for Vogue Hommes and some clients.

I received a call from Ingrid Sischy in New York, asking me to photograph David Bowie for Interview magazine. As you can imagine, I was ecstatic—my first record was an LP my stepfather had given me after a trip to London: Diamond Dogs by Bowie, and I still have it.

Anyway, I joined the production team, which included Paul Starr for makeup and Kim Bowen for styling, at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills. An hour later, I saw a man in a sharp suit—it was David Bowie.

I introduced myself and told him he looked like a fashion icon straight out of a Luchino Visconti film. Bowie smiled and said he was very into Italian neorealist cinema.

The most striking thing about photographing Bowie was the intensity of his gaze—his hypnotic eyes of two different colors, as if he were looking right through me. The session lasted an hour, and I had an absolute blast.

Through these portraits, I tried to pay tribute to Bowie, and indeed, he looks like a character from Visconti’s film Death in Venice.