If you’ve ever been in a college dorm, it’s a good bet you’ve seen the famous NSFW Pink Floyd poster featuring six nude women with the album covers of six Pink Floyd records painted on their backs. If there ever was a promo poster that could be art, this is it.
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But what is the backstory behind this iconic image? Well, for that, we wanted to dive into some rock history here below.
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The History
The poster was created by the British record label EMI in 1997 as a way of advertising the, well, “back” works by the psychedelic British-born rock band known for albums like The Wall and The Dark Side of the Moon.
The photo was shot by Tony May in 1996 at a private indoor pool in Putney, a district south of London. And the paint for the album covers was applied by artist Phyllis Cohen. The idea was created by Finlay Cowan, who worked with Pink Floyd collaborator and graphic designer Storm Thorgerson.
The Models
Model Pauline Swain (far left) showcases the band’s album cover for Atom Heart Mother, which was the group’s fifth studio LP. She showcases the blue sky, green grass and cow looking back at the viewer.
Model Julia Ashbury (second from left) showcases the cover for the 1996 re-release of the band’s 1971 album Relics. That new cover was created by Thorgerson and displays an elaborate musical instrument comprised of an organ and horns.
Model Jackie St. Clair (third from left) displays perhaps Pink Floyd’s most famous album cover, that of the 1973 LP The Dark Side of the Moon, with its black background, prism, rainbow, and all.
Model Mandy Lomax (third from right) displays the album cover for the beloved 1975 album Wish You Were Here, with its two men (one aflame) shaking hands as if in some mysterious, even deadly business deal.
Model Jo Caine (second from right) showcases the most simple of the lot, the album cover for the 1979 album,The Wall. With white bricks pained across her back, Caine stands out with subtlety.
Finally, model Kimberley Cowell (far right) displays the album cover for the 1977 album, Animals, with its industrial factory, towers and plumes of black smoke.
Below is an alternate shot of the models, which was not used.
Storm Thorgerson
Speaking about the images for the album covers and the iconic photo, Thorgerson said in his book, Mind over Matter: The Images of Pink Floyd, “It came about when we were commissioned to advertise the back catalogue of Pink Floyd in 1996. There’s an incredible sense of humour in the Floyd camp, and they decided that the back catalogue should be literally, the catalogue on the backs.”
He added, “The ‘backs’ idea seemed to be a nice way to re-present the images in a slightly different context, but still relatively clearly. It took us forever to paint the girls: they had to be still for five or six hours while their backs were painted by the very expert Phyllis Cohen.”
Finally, regarding the models, the artist concluded, “The covers were originally going to be painted on the backs of boys and girls, but that presented us with a problem, because each back is representing an album cover, and album covers are all the same size and shape. We needed uniformity, and girls and boys’ backs are obviously quite different.
“We had to choose one or the other, and we chose girls—probably because we’re boys. It is a questionable thing on a PC level, and the photo has received some critical observations—most particularly by my partner. But most women I’ve shown it to don’t mind it. I just think that girls’ backs are more elegant than men’s backs, and I was going for elegance and shape here.”
Photo by MJ Kim/Getty Images
