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Scarce color 27.25 x 16.75 printer’s proof of the front and back cover for Around the World in a Day, the seventh studio album by Prince. The print features a color bar on the upper border and printing legend on the lower border, listing the customer and job name as “W/B, Prince Album” and date as “2/12/85.” In fine condition, with trivial edgewear and a few light creases. Accompanied by photographic print copies of Prince's handwritten instructions to cover artist Doug Henders, listing the various imagery he wanted to include on the cover.
Doug Henders met Prince after graduating from Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 1983. Prince was about to begin production on the Purple Rain film, and Henders was commissioned to create artworks for his bedroom set. After production ended, one of those artworks, 'The Face,' became a mural for the 'When Doves Cry' music video. Afterwards, Henders was invited to become a stage designer and video artist for the Purple Rain Tour, which covered 33 cities over nine months of touring.
While on tour, Prince gave Henders handwritten instructions on the back pages of a tour itinerary to create an album cover painting for his forthcoming album: Around the World in a Day. Henders took Polaroid studies of Prince’s friends and his own to cast as characters in the painting, including himself in a cloud suit playing guitar.
On the road, Henders would videotape the concerts at night and then paint the album cover in his hotel room until the sun came up. Prince would call at all hours to examine the painting in progress and show it off to the local celebrities who were partying in his suite. Then he would give approval here and ask for edits there. The original painting was 2' x 4’. During the process of creating it, Henders had management buy an airline ticket for the painting so it had its own seat to ensure that it was not damaged in transit.
It took two months to complete the Around the World in a Day painting in a dozen cities. At the end of the tour in Los Angeles, Prince invited Warner Brothers executives, The Revolution, and personal management to a vacant office suite to hear Around the World in a Day for the first time. Everyone was assembled and asked to sit on the carpeted floor, with the album cover displayed on a painting easel next to the turntable. Prince entered the room with his father, wearing matching purple pajamas and paisley bathrobes. There was a hush in the room as he put the needle on the record, and everyone heard the music for the first time. The rest is history.
