When looking back on pop culture of four, five, or more decades ago, it’s important to remember that societal norms are living, breathing, and constantly evolving phenomena by which we guide our lives. What seems standard, unimpressive, or unassuming in the 1960s might seem appalling by today’s standards, and vice versa.
Having said that, the story behind the infamous album artwork for Blind Faith’s only album, their eponymous debut from 1969, is pretty cringey, even if one tries to keep this historical context in mind.
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The ‘Blind Faith’ Album Artwork That Sparked Controversy
One needn’t examine the album artwork for the original United Kingdom release of rock ‘n’ roll supergroup Blind Faith’s eponymous debut too closely to know why the image sparked such intense controversy in 1969. The album features an 11-year-old girl, topless, holding a small, phallic sculpture of a silver spaceship. She is looking at the camera, holding the sculpture off to the side, fully exposed. Even within the context of the societal standards of the late 60s, the image is vulnerable enough to make you wince and avert your eyes.
According to Bob Seidemann, who recruited the underage model and shot the artwork, he was looking for a Shakespearean, Juliet-like figure to represent the tree of life. The spaceship was the tree of knowledge. In a later statement, Seidemann said of the choice to hire a pre-teen girl for the nude photograph, “If she were too old, it would be cheesecake. Too young, and it would be nothing. The beginning of the transition from girl to woman, that is what I was after. That temporal point, that singular flare of radiant innocence.”
If that description wasn’t creepy enough, the fact that Seidemann thought the first girl he considered hiring was too old at only fourteen years old is enough to make most people groan in confusion. The model who actually appeared on the album was the other girl’s younger sister. She was only eleven years old. For payment, she asked for a pony, which should have been indicative of the fact that she was far too young to be hired to pose nude, even if she did consent to the image in question.
Strange, Bizarre Rumors Started Swirling About the Model
In the United States, Blind Faith didn’t even have a chance to whip up controversy with this original album artwork. Instead, Atco Records released Blind Faith with a cover of the band as the album artwork for American audiences. But not even a revised version of the album was enough to stop rumors from spreading about the other photograph.
Some claimed that the girl in the photograph was Ginger Baker’s illegitimate daughter, which would have put Baker as a dad in his early teens, only a few years older than the model in the photo. Another, more harrowing rumor claimed that the girl was a groupie who the band kept enslaved. In reality, the young girl—named Mariora Goschen—was just that. A young girl who happened to be in the right place at the right time. Or, maybe more appropriately, given the arguably exploitative nature of the photograph, the wrong place at the wrong time.
Sure, it was the 60s, times were different, on and on the excuses go. But this controversial album artwork from 1969 is an eyebrow-raising reminder that we, as a society, have often opted out of protecting young girls and women in the name of a man’s interests, creative or otherwise. In the end, maybe it’s best Blind Faith broke up after this first and only album, so as not to encourage Seidemann to come up with some other naked teen photograph in the name of “art.”
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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