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327.
Horses.
(NY): Arista Records, 1975. Original US promotional poster announcing Patti Smith’s debut album. 87x61cm. Offset litho. Design by Bob Heimall; photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe.
In “Just Kids”, Smith wrote that “There was never any question that Robert would take the portrait for the cover of Horses, my aural sword sheathed with Robert’s image. I had no sense of how it would look, just that it should be true”, and tells of how she “promised Robert... that I would wear a clean shirt with no stains on it” (she bought a stack of white shirts from the Salvation Army in the Bowery and chose one with a stitched monogram that reminded her of a Brassaï shot of Jean Genet). The session took place at Sam Wagstaff’s naturally well-lit penthouse apartment on 5th Avenue. Only twelve pictures were taken, and when Mapplethorpe showed Smith the contact sheet a few days later, he pointed one out and said, “This one has the magic.” His portrait has since come to be regarded as an all-time classic album cover, and “the most celebrated document in the relationship between the photographer and the poet-songwriter” (Rolling Stone).
The sleeve’s designer, Bob Heimall, has received less attention, but as art director for Elektra he designed, among many others, the covers for the Stooges’ first album and “Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine” for the Doors.
Small top left corner loss; two small chips to left edge, with rubbing and creasing along the length of the same edge; small area of rubbing to lower edge and other smaller, sporadic patches; some surface wear and creasing, o/w Very Good. Conservation linen-backed.
