Beatles Masterpiece for your fridge

[Lord Reith]

In hirez, Images Of A Woman.


click

And it won't cost you 1.7 million greenbacks. Since it was painted on art paper, it fits inside a standard size large picture frame of your choice. Or just scale it down to A4 and bung it on the fridge.

[Lord Reith]

And here's the Making Of the masterpiece...

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[Lord Reith]

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[Lord Reith]

THE BEATLES, 1966: Images of a Woman


Acrylic and watercolor on Japanese art paper
21 ½ x 31 in. (54.6 x 78.8 cm.), the image
39 ¼ x 39 ¾ (99.7 x 101 cm.), framed
together with a Certificate of Authenticity from Tracks UK and a hardcopy of Robert Whitaker, Eight Days a Week: Inside The Beatles' Final World

Tour, New York, 2008.

Provenance
----------

Tetsusaburo Shimoyama, Japan, 1966.
Takao Nishino, Japan, 1989.
Philip Weiss Auctions, New York, 2012.
With Tracks Ltd., UK, from whom acquired by the present owner.

Images of a Woman
-----------------

From these four ridiculously special young men came a body of creativity that is lasting forever and becoming ever more brilliant. They wrote iconic

songs which they sang and played in revolutionary and absurdly huge-selling recordings, they played concerts and tours, they made full-length films

and short films, they did TV and radio, they generated books, drawings and photos, and they changed the way people looked, dressed, thought and

spoke, altering attitudes and brokering positive possibilities. They put their special stamp of quality over all things – and this includes a large

colorful painting they made in a Tokyo hotel room, an untitled artwork that became known as Images Of A Woman.

The setting is Room 1005 of Tokyo’s Hilton Hotel, the Presidential Suite, an opulent and lavish jail for the Beatles for most of the 100 hours they

spent in Japan from 29 June to 3 July 1966. For close on three years, they had evoked fantastic scenes of adulation everywhere they appeared, some

of the situations downright dangerous. Japanese authorities decided to ensure their safety with a degree of pride which, in the Beatles’ minds,

bordered on fanatical, every detail of their timetable tidied to the micro-minute. They were whisked between the hotel and the Budo Kan Hall, where

they played five concerts, with ultra-crisp security, no risk being taken about absolutely anything at all.

Equally, every generous thought was given to making the Beatles feel comfortable and content in their luxurious hotel suite, so they’d have no

hankering to go anywhere. Actually, they managed two great escapes. Paul slipped out for a fleeting early-morning peep at the Imperial Palace with

Mal Evans and John ventured on to some nearby streets with Neil Aspinall. But really they stayed in the suite most of the 100 hours, and passed the

time with little pain. The Beatles looked around for things to do and found them, and they received visitors, many of whom came bearing gifts - one

bringing a top-quality set of art materials.
Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager, was always smart. Among the other talented people he represented was a photographer, Robert Whitaker. With his

insider status, Whitaker traveled with the Beatles through their summer 1966 concert tour that took in West Germany, Japan and the Philippines, with

also an unscheduled typhoon-avoiding stop in Alaska. Whitaker’s vibrant color photos set the scene for the painting - the Beatles arranged in four

chairs around a table, on which they laid out a substantial rectangular sheet of fine Japanese art paper. The chairs corresponded more or less with

the four corners, and they placed a table lamp roughly in the center, both to weigh down the paper and light it. Working under the illuminated bulb,

each man began to create from his corner and slowly work up towards the middle.

Another Whitaker photo shows a paint palette of 21 compartments, a tube of vermilion squished to spout its vivid redness. The bristles of a handsome

new wooden-handled brush have been dipped in the pigment, perhaps for the first task to be done (likely a collective decision), giving the entire

thing a red background wash. After that they worked in oils and watercolors, and Whitaker recalled that the finished work was completed over two

nights. As the Beatles were eternally late to bed, this tells us that after playing their concerts at the Budo Kan, and being zipped back to their

hotel with pin-sharp punctuality, they’d have reapplied themselves to their task. Whitaker said it: ‘They'd stop [painting], go and do a concert,

then it was “Let's go back to the picture!”’ He also added: ‘I never saw them calmer or more contented than at this time.’

All four had artistic talent, inevitably. They were multi-instrumentalist musicians, singers, songwriters and all-time icons and they were strong at

drawing. Though generally poor by choice at grammar school, John was top of the class in Art – after which he went to art school for three eventful

years, and as a world-famous Beatle he’d published two books of idiosyncratic writing with lightning-fast caricatures. Paul was always a highly

accomplished and inventive artist, easily capable of gaining an Art A-Level at the end of his two-year school course – he failed it only because

he’d gone off on the Beatles’ first tour. (That’s how much he loved playing rock and roll.) George and Ringo both drew too -- often and with plenty

of talent. George would always treasure a schoolbook which showed that when he should have been paying attention to teachers he was filling page

after page with elaborate sketches of guitars.

Although born left-handed, Ringo’s orientation had been shifted in his infancy by his superstitious paternal grandmother, who believed that being

southpaw was the work of the devil. When drumming, Ringo led with his left but played a right-handed kit. He wrote right-handed and, we can see from

the Tokyo photos, painted with his right too. We see also how John worked with his eyes close to the paper. Ever short-sighted, he was almost

certainly wearing contact lenses here but still had the habit of myopically scrutinizing whatever he was reading, writing or drawing. George is

focused and concentrating on getting a line right. Paul, left-handed (and so definitively disproving Ringo’s superstitious grin), is painting a

black line while holding a lit cigarette between the fingers of his right hand.

Mingling with the scent of paint, the smell of this painting is Virginia tobacco. Almost everyone smoked in those days, and certainly the Beatles

and their entourage of seven. Their collectively favored cigarette in this period was Lark, an American brand, and Whitaker’s palette photo captures

one of the red packets. ‘Ciggies’ would have been smoked pretty much chain-like at the table … and then there was the recreational smoking they did

in the suite’s opulent bathroom with a wet towel kicked to the door to stop the smell getting out. Almost every rock band has had their most

intimate moments of togetherness in a discreetly shared joint, the Beatles certainly included.

One way of looking at the table shows them seated in the world-beloved order of John, Paul, George, Ringo. (Then again, looked at from another

angle, it was different). They’re wearing open-neck shirts, no ties, George with a light sweater over his. There are refreshments, glasses of tomato

juice likely with vodka inside, and of course they painted to music. Their own music, because they’d only just completed their latest album (the

sixth in nearly four years) on the eve of leaving London for this inter-continental tour. The labels of the 12-inch Emidisc acetate they played, cut

at Abbey Road in those last hours, said 23 VI 66 – The Beatles – 33 1/3rpm MONO, since when, while in Germany, they’d decided its title should be

Revolver. So the sound of this painting (among much else no doubt) is the dazzling aural kaleidoscope that took in Taxman, Eleanor Rigby, Yellow

Submarine, For No One, And Your Bird Can Sing, I'm Only Sleeping and Tomorrow Never Knows, to name but seven of its fourteen gems. The Beatles heard

it here as a finished album a month before the world would lay its first loving hand on it.

‘They never discussed what they were painting,’ Whitaker would recall. ‘It evolved naturally.’ Definitively untitled in its moment, the work

acquired the name Images Of A Woman in the late-1980s after a Japanese journalist thought he could see female genitals in Paul’s quadrant. But who

knows what Paul really painted – probably not even him. There are no particular figures anywhere: each of the four has created and filled-in spaces

varied in every detail and color, not representative of much beyond freeform patterns, almost as if a spoken intent was to leave nothing

recognizable. There are shapes of things, squiggles, blobs, circles, squares, protrusions and intrusions. By colors alone John’s work vaguely

suggests Spain, but one should draw no conclusion from this. John and Paul have used the most black, working mostly in acrylic, George and Ringo

seem mostly to have used watercolors, but one imagines them all swapping paints around, ‘Gis a go with yer oils.’ George’s work is the most

expansive – he reaches from his corner of the paper to the lamp in the middle and breaks into the neighboring area, where Ringo’s smaller work has a

cartoony bent, as if he might have had a firm-ish idea before obscuring it. Overall, the effect is typical of the Beatles: the combination is

positive, not negative; it’s bright, vivid, alive.

The work done, they removed the table lamp, the base of which had left a large white circle near the middle, and here each of them signed his name,

adjacent to his art. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr – the four most recognizable signatures of modern times, the four men

whose ideas, talent and courage had completely changed the face and shape of popular music and youth culture for the better, and whose creativity

really would go on to be timeless.

And having painted and signed their work, they gave it away, very happily and probably without a second thought, to the official Beatles Fan Club in

Japan. Among the visitors they welcomed into their suite was club president and a translator, and photos show the Beatles easily comfortable with

them. Almost always cordial, and with practically none of the pretensions routinely practiced by stars, the Beatles were happy to receive visitors

and had scores of similarly positive encounters down the years. Once the painting had dried there are shots of it being handed over; they gave away

their art unconcerned that it might one day be treasured as an exceptional souvenir not only of their time here in Tokyo but of all their brilliant

years together.

Within sixty days of the paint drying, the Beatles had endured multiple unpleasant times in the Philippines and the USA, as a result of which – and

with an accumulation of road experiences over many long years – they decided to give up the live stage. But though touring could be tiresome and

annoying, its thrills shaded by the tedium of travelling and waiting around, it gave the Beatles a simultaneous unity they didn’t have when they

stopped – and this would cause a sea-change in their chemistry. The very act of being together in hotel suites gave them a priceless proximity to

one another’s ideas and attitudes – and this Tokyo painting is the proof of it.

Pictures by Robert Whitaker and other visiting photographers show us that further art pieces were also made here. There was paper, paints and time,

so of course they did other things as well, and it’s to be hoped that further, smaller treasures might turn up. But whether or not they do, the so-

called Images Of A Woman is the only known substantial piece of art made by the four Beatles in their years together – an extraordinary and unique

item that has the best of provenance.
Christie's would like to thank Beatles historian, Mark Lewisohn, for his contribution and expertise in preparing this lot note. Mr. Lewisohn is

presently writing the second volume in his trilogy The Beatles: All These Years; the first volume is Tune In. He has worked on many projects for

Paul McCartney and the Beatles’ Apple companies.



*********************************************************************************


By 1966, The Beatles had established a whole new measure of success, a degree of stardom simply unknown before it happened to them. Headlines were

made by everything they did and everywhere they went, and that included taking western music to the east. ‘Pop music had suddenly become very

popular amongst Japanese youth, and there was a clamour for The Beatles to perform there,’ Mark Lewisohn, an English historian, biographer and

Beatles authority, tells Christie’s.

While the group had toured around Europe, America and Australia, they had never experienced a culture so foreign to their own — until their manager,

Brian Epstein, arranged for The Beatles to play five concerts at the Budokan hall, an indoor arena originally built for the 1964 Tokyo Summer

Olympics.

The Beatles, Images of a Woman, 1966. Acrylic and watercolour on paper. 21½ x 31 in (54.6 x 78.8 cm), the image. 39¼ x 39¾ (99.7 x 101 cm), framed.

Sold for $1,744,000 in The Exceptional Sale on 1 February 2024 at Christie’s in New York

During their stay in the Presidential Suite at Tokyo’s Hilton Hotel, from 29 June to 3 July 1966, The Beatles had heavy security — it was a point of

pride for Japanese officials to keep the band safe from the hordes of fans and countless threats that were typical during the band’s media circus.

‘They were whisked in and out of their hotel through service entrances and exits,’ describes Lewisohn. ‘Apart from the fact that their cars sped

down streets, and people might wave at them from a distance, no one really came into contact with them. Even in the arena, the audience was held far

away from the stage.’

‘Going to Japan was an eye opener for The Beatles, except that they didn’t see much of it,’ the historian adds. Nevertheless, the band created a

world of their own in their hotel room, thanks to the high-quality art supplies they were gifted. Equipped with fine Japanese art paper,

watercolours, oil paints and brushes, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr created what would become the only known painting

made and signed by each of them. The finished work, Images of a Woman (a name that a journalist subsequently gave the untitled painting) will be

offered in The Exceptional Sale at Christie’s in New York on 1 February 2024.

Ringo Starr, John Lennon and Paul McCartney paint Images of a Woman at the Tokyo Hilton, June 1966. Photograph by Robert Whitaker/Getty Images

‘The Beatles gave up touring two months after they were in Tokyo, and they never went back as a group,’ says Lewisohn. ‘That’s one of the reasons

this painting is so special, because they didn’t have this kind of time together again, stuck in a hotel room with nothing to do.’ The photographer

Robert Whitaker had joined the band on tour, and his colour photographs brilliantly capture this snippet of time.


In Whitaker’s photographs, four chairs are arranged around a table, on which the bandmembers have laid out a 30x40-inch rectangular sheet of paper.

The chairs correspond with the four corners, and a lamp is placed in the centre, both to weigh down the paper and light it. Working under the

illuminated bulb, each man has begun to create from his corner and gradually work towards the middle.

‘They’d stop [painting], go and do a concert, then it was “Let’s go back to the picture!”’ recalls Whitaker, adding that the work was completed over

two nights. ‘I never saw them calmer or more contented than at this time.’ According to the photographer, The Beatles never discussed what they were

painting — ‘it evolved naturally.’

The palette The Beatles used for Images of a Woman, June 1966. Photograph by Robert Whitaker/Getty Images

While the bandmembers are revered for their musical propensity, they each possessed a talent in the fine arts as well. ‘Each of The Beatles liked to

draw, and there are many examples. They would often append autographs with a drawing,’ notes Lewisohn.

Lennon went to art school for three years and famously published two books of idiosyncratic writing with clever caricatures. ‘Paul was always a

highly accomplished and inventive artist, easily capable of gaining an Art A-Level at the end of his two-year school course — he failed it only

because he’d gone off on The Beatles’ first tour,’ says Lewisohn.

The Beatles with Images of a Woman at the Tokyo Hilton, June 1966. Photograph by Robert Whitaker/Getty Images

The historian adds that George and Ringo also drew ‘often and with plenty of talent. George treasured a schoolbook which showed that when he should

have been paying attention to teachers, he was filling page after page with elaborate sketches of guitars.’

While The Beatles’ contributions to Images of a Woman seem decidedly abstract, the work acquired its current name in the late-1980s after a Japanese

journalist thought he could see female genitals in Paul’s quadrant. While Lennon and McCartney favoured black paint for their portions, Harrison and

Starr relied heavily on watercolour, and they united the quadrants with a punchy vermillion background to heighten the overall graphic effect. When

the work was completed The Beatles removed the table lamp and signed an area of the remaining large white circle adjacent to their art.

Paul McCartney painting Images of a Woman at the Tokyo Hilton, June 1966. Photograph by Robert Whitaker/Getty Images

George Harrison painting Images of a Woman at the Tokyo Hilton, June 1966. Photograph by Robert Whitaker/Getty Images

Lewisohn recalls The Beatles’ generosity with their fans and supporters: ‘It’s typical of The Beatles that they would gift something to a fan or fan

club without a second thought. It’s as well that they did, because otherwise this painting might not have survived.’ They welcomed the president of

Japan’s official Beatles Fan Club, Tetsusaburo Shimoyama, into their hotel suite, and gave it to him.

Alternating between ‘ciggies’ and brushstrokes, The Beatles painted Images of a Woman, likely whilst listening to Revolver, their newly completed

album, a month before the rest of the world heard it. Not only, then, does the painting spectacularly commemorate a special moment of respite and

camaraderie between The Beatles — it also anticipates iconic songs, such as Eleanor Rigby and Yellow Submarine that would forever change the course

of music history.

[MrMurphMcgee]

I didn’t realize till now that the circle in the middle was where the lamp stood.

[glassonion]

This is fantastic. What a great wallpaper this makes.

[rtbcIII]

Was that first published in the orig. late '70s edition of this book?

[Lord Reith]

I didn’t realize till now that the circle in the middle was where the lamp stood.

Yeah, me too! I used to think, "Is this meant to be an album cover?"

[Lord Reith]

Was that first published in the orig. late '70s edition of this book?

I dunno. It has been seen before, but not in this quality. The resolution is good enough to print out at full size. Any printers can do this for you.

[alphabeatles]

I didn’t realize till now that the circle in the middle was where the lamp stood.

The lamp! Where is the lamp?! It needs to go with this work!