diff --git a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/py-pillow/package.py b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/py-pillow/package.py
index 5729c5c3dd0..6d35957819c 100644
--- a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/py-pillow/package.py
+++ b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/py-pillow/package.py
@@ -129,4 +129,6 @@ def variant_to_flag(variant):
             return '--{0}-{1}'.format(able, variant)
 
         variants = ['jpeg', 'zlib', 'tiff', 'freetype', 'lcms', 'jpeg2000']
-        return list(map(variant_to_flag, variants))
+        args = list(map(variant_to_flag, variants))
+        args.extend(['--rpath=%s' % ":".join(self.rpath)])
+        return args