Harry Styles is reuniting with the photographer behind his Fine Line album cover — and this time, it seems like wardrobe was optional.
A nude portrait of Styles by Tim Walker is featured in Tim Walker’s Fairyland: Love and Legends, a new exhibition opening Friday at London’s National Portrait Gallery. The exhibition explores queer identity, community and love through the lens of one of Britain’s foremost photographers.
And this isn’t Styles and Walker’s first creative rendezvous. Walker photographed the artwork for Styles’ 2019 sophomore album Fine Line, which remains one of the singer’s biggest commercial eras. According to Walker’s website, the photographer has also created album art for artists including Kate Bush, in addition to his work across fashion and music.
Fine Line, however, did make quite an entrance on the Billboard 200, debuting at No. 1 in December 2019. The debut was Styles’ second No. 1 album on the chart and gave him the biggest week for a pop album by a male artist in more than four years at the time.
Fairyland is the result of five years of work by Walker, who photographed some 250 people connected to queer culture, activism and history for the exhibition. The National Portrait Gallery describes the project as a celebration of more than 50 years of queer activism, community and love, bringing together established figures with activists, performers, artists, writers and others.
Styles joins a lineup that also includes Chappell Roan, Lady Gaga, Hunter Schafer, Frank Ocean, Ian McKellen and Miriam Margolyes, among others. Walker’s signature fantastical photography is paired with portraits that demonstrate the people and the stories that are the heart of the project.
The National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition also includes a content warning: Fairyland contains nudity, adult themes and some sexually explicit imagery, so Styles’ birthday-suit portrait won’t be the exhibition’s only NSFW surprise.
Tim Walker’s Fairyland: Love and Legends runs at London’s National Portrait Gallery from Friday through Feb. 7, 2027. To learn more, visit the National Portrait Gallery’s website.
