Photographer Wolfgang Tillmans Reveals Story Behind Frank Ocean’s Iconic ‘Blonde’ Album Cover

Photographer Wolfgang Tillmans has revealed the story behind his photograph that ultimately became the cover image for Frank Ocean’s 2016 album Blonde.

The German photographer captured the now-iconic image of Ocean standing in a shower with short green hair that appears on the cover of Blonde. The singer appears shirtless, water droplets glistening on his skin, against a backdrop of white tiles.

As the Smithsonian reports, the image embodies motifs frequently found in Tillmans’ photography, “such as melancholy, intimacy, nostalgia, and queerness.”

But while the photograph is closely associated with Ocean’s Blonde, Tillmans revealed that it was never originally intended to serve as the album’s cover.

@cur8.ldn he shot Frank Ocean’s Blond cover and told me the whole story! I interviewed Wolfgang Tillmans for his new exhibition at Centre Pompidou in Paris he’s one of the most important photographers of his generation super influential in contemporary queer art! follow if you want to discover more artists and exhibitions! #LondonArtScene #LondonArtists #QueerArt #Photography #ArtistInterview ♬ son original – CUR8 — London art scene

In an interview last month with Arthur Hadade, co-founder of CUR8, a social app for art discovery in London and Paris, Tillmans recounted how he met Ocean and how the collaboration came about. He explained that the pair were initially brought together by the team at Fantastic Man magazine, who had arranged an exclusive cover story for their 10th anniversary edition.

“It was originally photographed for the 10th anniversary of Fantastic Man, Anglo-Dutch menswear culture magazine. It took a few weeks to get Frank and me together,” Tillmans tells Hadade. “We had several attempts, only for him to call at short notice. ‘Something came up, I can’t come.'”

Eventually, Ocean traveled overnight from London to Berlin to meet Tillmans for a photo shoot.

“And in the end, he drove all the way from London through the night to Berlin to arrive in the morning and was suddenly there. And we had a really productive, great day of shooting,” Tillmans says.

However, Fantastic Man later received a letter from Ocean’s lawyers in Los Angeles, preventing them from using the photos Tillmans had taken for the magazine. But one year later, Tillmans was surprised to get a call from Ocean, who asked if he could use the same portrait for the cover of his album Blonde.

“He vetoed any pictures of this set to come out in Fantastic Man. But a year later, he got in touch and said, ‘Can I use this for the cover of my next album [Blonde]?’ Which, of course, was the summer of 2016,” the photographer says.

In addition to being a photographer, Tillmans also produces music, both solo and with his band Fragile. Ocean included Tillmans’ previously unreleased track “Device Control” on his 2016 visual album Endless. Tillmans had shared some of his music with Ocean weeks earlier and was surprised to hear his track featured on the project.

“So I had music on the first album and the cover of the second,” Tillmans tells Hadade, reflecting on the fascinating dual role he played in Ocean’s body of work.