It started as a 1992 photoshoot for Spin magazine in which husband-and-wife photography duo, Guzman, had planned to spoof the outdated notions of family life that the most famous celebrity couple of the moment had so outspokenly refuted — Courtney ironing, perhaps; Kurt mowing the lawn — but amid the chaos that surrounded their own version of family life, it surprisingly segued into one of the most tender portrayals of their marriage and parenthood that would ever be captured.
Five images would eventually accompany the Family Values cover story, but on the 30th anniversary of Cobain’s untimely death, a new 112-page photobook reveals the shoot in its entirety; approximately 90 images featuring Kurt, Courtney, and baby Frances captured one morning in their modest Hollywood home.
Accompanying Guzman was Michael Azerrad, the journalist, musician, and close friend of Kurt, who would pen the article. He quickly saw that the image-makers were not in for the shoot they had envisaged. “For one thing,” he explains, “Kurt was still in bed. Guzman just rolled with it: fine, they said, we’ll just photograph him there. So they trooped upstairs and photographed Kurt in bed, holding Frances, later joined by Courtney, and one of those family shots made the Spin cover.”
“Slowly, a narrative of two transcendent artists beside their most tender creation began to unfold upon the studio wall,” continue Guzman, “and those are the images that appear in this book.”
It was a tumultuous time for the musicians. Kurt, wearing pyjamas, and Courtney, pregnant with Frances Bean, would get married on Waikiki Beach, Hawaii, having met just a couple of years before. Two years later the Nirvana frontman was dead. Famously struggling with the intensity of his band’s success, as well as drug addiction and the demons of his childhood, Cobain was also a progressive voice for his era; a champion of women’s rights and unafraid to channel his own feminine side. In this new publication from powerHouse Books, his playful tenderness is captured effortlessly by Guzman, whose capability behind the lens is evident by the stellar list of leading brands and celebrities who have demanded to work with them.
“There are many good ways to be a family,” states Michael Azerrad. “In 1992, that was a difficult thing for some people to get their head around, and it still is. But, as these very moving photographs demonstrate, there is only one true family value, and that is love.”
A touching document of a ‘normal’ moment in the turbulent and brief adulthood of a cultural icon, Family Values: Kurt, Courtney & Frances Bean is available now from powerHouse Books.
