Shreddin’ Cobain

 

 

In August of 1993, Nirvana was in New York to perform at the legendary Roseland Ballroom to promote the release of In Utero, the third and final studio album by the band. Jesse Frohman was hired to photograph Nirvana by London’s The Observer Sunday magazine while they were in town. This would turn out to be the last formal shoot for which Cobain was photographed before he committed suicide on April 5th, 1994.

Marking the 20th anniversary of his death, Thames & Hudson has published Kurt Cobain: The Last Session by Jesse Frohman. It is a beautifully designed art book filled with a rich edit of images of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana from the shoot that day. The book, which includes many previously unpublished images, is an insider’s look at Nirvana and Frohman’s now famous shoot. The image shown above is the color cover image for which there is also a black & white variation.

Also commemorating the anniversary is this new Kurt Cobain snowboard produced by Endeavor Snowboards, that features one of the most iconic photographs of Kurt Cobain ever taken from that shoot. Frohman was approached by Endeavor to create a special limited edition “artist collaboration” board, which had obvious appeal and timed perfectly with the release of the book.

Says Max Jenke, Creative Director of Endeavor, “I first saw Jesse’s photo at the Morrison Hotel Gallery, which has an insane collection of music photographs. These ones of Kurt are absolutely legendary though and I always wanted one! When we started discussing the early release program of boards, we wanted to add an amazing graphic story to the new tech we were releasing (The Channel by Burton). Music has always influenced our graphics, whether it was album covers, music videos, or the songs themselves. Nirvana was a band all of us listened to growing up and it happened to be the 20th anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death this year, so it all came together.”

I recently sat down with Jesse, an old friend of mine, to find out more about the shoot, the book, and the board. I first saw the snowboard on the Instagram feed of the uber hip and chic Paris boutique, Colette, where Jesse told me two boards were made available for a book signing at the store. Even though I’ve known Jesse for a long time, we had never talked about photographing Nirvana that day.
 
Read More

 
 

BACK TO TOP