It was said that music artwork would evaporate with the advent of streaming and downloads, but the visual side of music has never been more important, living forever on the internet as well as sitting on our shelves and turntables. Suede’s Dog Man Star, one of the most impactful records of recent times, marks 30 years since its release this year. Its cover was shot by photographer Joanne Leonard in 1971 in Mexico and then discovered years later by Brett Anderson of the band, who used an iteration of the work for the cover.
Leonard, who photographed the American South in the late 1960s but is known primarily for her photography of interiors, is now in her eighties. She has enjoyed a long career, and as an artist and a teacher her work has been shown all around the world, but in some ways her most famous image exists in a different orbit. Sad Dreams on Cold Mornings is just one version of an image she reworked many times, and its life as a seminal album cover is just another one of its lives or interpretation.
