In memoriam: photographer Brian Griffin (1948 – 2024)

British photographer Brian Griffin has died aged 75. Griffin was celebrated for his playful photography and later work, which appeared on album covers for artists including Depeche Mode and Echo & the Bunnymen.

Griffin, who was born in Birmingham in 1948, intertwined surrealist motifs throughout work that mischievously rethought the corporate world, drawing on his diverse inspirations, from the industrial influences of his childhood to futuristic films such as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, and Renaissance paintings.

After graduating from Manchester School of Art in 1972, Griffin moved to London and focused on portraits of musicians including Elvis Costello, The Jam, Queen, Ringo Starr, Iggy Pop, Siouxsie and the Banshees. He shot the first five Depeche Mode studio album covers, among which the debut one was released in 1981. 

Griffin also created the album cover for Echo & the Bunnymen's Heaven Up Here (also 1981), which was named the best album of that year by NME, and one of the best albums of all time by Rolling Stone magazine. He received the Royal Photographic Society Centenary Medal in 2013, and his works have also been celebrated in retrospective exhibitions at Reykjavík Art Museum, and London’s V&A and National Portrait Gallery.

Here, we look back to Griffin’s shoot for Wallpaper* in May 2018, capturing an immaculately tailored corporate meltdown. 

Brian Griffin’s Wallpaper* shoot