Christie’s will auction the only painting co-created by legendary rock band, The Beatles. Included in The Exceptional Sale, which will commence on February 1, the artwork was created in the 1960s and comes with a pre-auction estimate of $400,000 to $600,000 USD.
The abstracted painting is made with watercolor and acrylic and is commonly referred to as Images of a Woman (1966). “It’s such a rarity to have a work on paper outside of their music catalog that is [a] physical relic, this tangible object with contributions from all four of the Beatles,” said Christie’s specialist Casey Rogers in a past interview. “It’s memorabilia, it’s a work of art… It’s a wonderful piece of storytelling.”
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The Beatles created the artwork while holed up in the Hilton Hotel during a tour in Japan between June 29 and July 3, 1966. The choice to largely stay inside was more a fear by promoters that the band would be ambushed by fans if they ventured anywhere else. As a way to pass time, each member sat around a table together and started to create art on a single piece of Japanese paper — each corner dedicated to one bandmate — as they worked their way towards the middle. “They’d stop [painting], go and do a concert, then it was “Let’s go back to the picture!” said photographer Robert Whitaker, who documented the five shows during the tour. “I never saw them calmer or more contented than at this time.”
While unmistakably gifted at their respective instruments, all four members were also talented at drawing. According to a release by Christie’s, John Lennon and Paul McCartney also were touted art school students before trading that pathway for music. “They never discussed what they were painting,’ Whitaker added. “It evolved naturally.” The painting itself was left untitled, and in hindsight, given the name Images of a Woman (1966) 20 years later, after a Japanese journalist said he could detect “female genitals” in the quadrant that Paul painted, Christie’s added.
As the story goes, the painting was given to The Beatles Fan Club in Tokyo soon after the tour and eventually acquired by its president, Tetsusaburo Shimoyama, who held onto it for 40 years before selling it via Weiss Auctions in New York in 2012. The latest sale of Images of a Woman (1966) will begin at Christie’s on February 1.
