A few months ago, Nieves González received a cryptic message on Instagram from a woman named Leith Clark. Clark wanted to know if González, a Spanish artist, was interested in doing a commission. Intrigued, González agreed to a call. When she got on, Clark was on the other end—as was Lily Allen.
Their conversation that day resulted in an idea that became a physical thing: an oil painting of the British singer in a Miu Miu puffer, a lace teddy, and Valentino boots, which she then used as the cover for her latest album, West End Girl.
It would be a disservice to Allen to say West End Girl made a splash. The album, written by Allen in 10 days and released on October 24, was a contest-winning cannonball: Its 14 tracks appeared to provide a brutally honest look into Allen’s marriage to Stranger Things actor David Harbour, with quite literal lyrics in lieu of allegorical ones. (In one song, Allen reads texts sent to her from her husband’s alleged mistress. In another, she describes discovering a plastic bag full of Trojan condoms and butt plugs. Allen has said that the album is not “all true.”) TikToks reacting to the album racked up millions of views. Instagram, meanwhile, was flooded with memes proclaiming a “West End Girl Winter” (a play on Charli xcx’s “Brat Summer” phenomenon). In all of the content, González’s cover was front and center, transcending from a mere image to a piece of pop culture iconography.
Clark, a fashion stylist and Allen’s creative director, says that she had a clear vision for the album art from the start: a Dutch masters portrait. Pioneered by artists like Vermeer and Rembrandt during Holland’s golden age in the 17th century, the Dutch masters’ paintings featured their subjects—often members of the merchant class, a novel concept at a time when portraiture was reserved for royals or religious figures—in a dignified manner. Oftentimes subjects held a prop meant to symbolize their own ethos: A coin purse, for example, might be in the hand of a wealthy businessman, whereas a compass could sit in the lap of a shipping magnate. An attractive woman might also hold a flower (usually a tulip) as a symbol of her beauty. Rembrandt in particular embraced chiaroscuro, or a style where there’s a high contrast between dark and light.
