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Proof Print for Nirvana's "Nevermind" Cover Artwork
Proof Print for Nirvana's "Nevermind" Cover Artwork

Proof Print for Nirvana's "Nevermind" Cover Artwork

Performing artist Nirvana
Date1991
Mediumpaper (fiber product), ink
DimensionsOverall (HWD): 15 1/8 × 15 1/8 in. (38.418 × 38.418 cm)
Credit LineMoPOP permanent collection
Object number1996.449.4
Text Entries

This cover artwork for Nirvana's 1991 second studio album Nevermind illustrates the CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) color model used to isolate individual colors for four-color printing. The artwork consists of the main album image featuring a swimming, naked baby boy, Spencer Elden, taken by photographer, Kirk Weddle.

Nevermind was the band’s first recording with drummer Dave Grohl (b. 1969). The line-up for the album included the members of Nirvana: vocalist and guitarist Kurt Cobain (1967–1994), Krist Novoselić on bass (b. 1965), Dave Grohl, and guest musicians Chad Channing (b. 1967) and Kirk Canning (b. 1963).

With the release of Nevermind on September 24, 1991, and the constant MTV rotation of the single, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Nirvana became the face of the once underground genre of Grunge and suddenly made Seattle and the Pacific Northwest the epicenter of popular music culture in the early 1990s.

By the end of 1991, Nevermind was selling over 400,000 copies per week and by January 1992, the album was #1 on the Billboard 200 Top Albums chart. Nirvana’s success paved the way for bands like Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Screaming Trees, and others who soon followed. By all accounts, 1992 was the year of Grunge, and that year Nirvana undertook two tours; Cobain married Courtney Love (b. 1964) of the band Hole; Cobain’s and Love’s daughter, Frances Bean, was born; and the band headlined the Reading Festival.  Despite difficulties with drug use, Cobain continued to perform throughout 1993 and the beginning of 1994, when Nirvana had to cut their European tour short due to his overdose in Rome, Italy. On April 8, 1994, Kurt Cobain was found in his Seattle home, dead by suicide. He was 27 years old. 

Despite his tragic death which lead to Nirvana disbanding, Nirvana and the Grunge genre have made an indelible mark on popular music that resonates to this day

Square formatted artwork for an album cover shows a photograph of a naked baby boy swimming underwater with a U.S. dollar bill on a fishhook, in front of him, just out of his reach and CMYK color guides on the bottom frame.
CopyrightThis Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). For more information, see http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
On View
Not on view
Low res. jpg. image- NOT publication quality
Nirvana
Date: November 1993
Medium: paper (fiber product), ink
Object number: 2011.10.3
Nevermind Record Release Party at Re-Bar, Seattle, WA, September 13, 1991
Nirvana
Date: 1991
Medium: paper (fiber product); ink
Object number: 1995.78.25
Nirvana Set List for Concert at the Morocco Shrine Auditorium, Jacksonville, FL, 1993
Nirvana
Date: November 26, 1993
Medium: paper (fiber product), ink, pressure-sensitive tape
Object number: 1995.29.1
Contract between Nirvana and Sub Pop Records, 1989
Nirvana
Date: January 1, 1989
Medium: paper (fiber product), ink
Object number: 1996.164.1.A-.G
Low res. jpg. image- NOT publication quality
Nirvana
Date: October 30, 1992
Medium: paper (fiber product), ink
Object number: 2011.39.1.1
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Nirvana
Date: 1989
Object number: 1996.449.22
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Nirvana
Date: 1989
Medium: paper (fiber product); ink
Object number: 1997.337.4
Nirvana Set List Handwriten by Dave Grohl for Concert in Sao Paulo, Brazil
Nirvana
Date: January 16, 1993
Medium: paper (fiber product), ink
Object number: 1998.864.1
Nirvana "Safer Than Heaven" Demo Tape
Nirvana
Date: c. 1988
Object number: 1999.89.1.A,.B
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Run-D.M.C.
Date: 1988
Medium: ink; paper (fiber product)
Object number: 1999.389.4
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Atron Gregory
Date: 1989
Medium: ink; paper (fiber product)
Object number: 1999.389.56
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