David Bowie Is: Inside the Visionary World of David

This is the book to celebrate David Bowie’s career as a pioneering artist. It features more than 300 color illustrations, including personal and performance photographs, album covers, costumes, original lyric sheets, and much more.

Published to accompany the blockbuster international exhibition launched at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, this is the only volume that grants access to Bowie’s personal archive of performance costumes, ephemera, and original design artwork by the artist, bringing it together to present a completely new perspective on his creative work and collaborations.

David Bowie Is traces his career from its beginnings in London, through the breakthroughs of Space Oddity and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, and on to his enormous impact on 20th-century music and art.

Essays by V&A curators on Bowie’s London, image, and influence on the fashion world are complemented by Howard Goodall on musicology; Camille Paglia on gender and decadence; and Jon Savage on Bowie’s relationship with William Burroughs and his fans.