Up for auction is a painting of the iconic Beatles that was stored in the presidential suite of the Tokyo Hilton Hotel in the middle of a tour in 1966. writes about this CNN.
They called their paintings “Images of Women”.
The painting, believed by some experts to be the only work of art created jointly by the four Beatles (or at least signed by all four), will go up for sale at Christie’s auction house in New York on February 1.
Photographs of a Woman is estimated to bring in between $400,000 and $600,000.
As the story goes, the Fab Four spent nearly 100 hours in Japan during their tour in the summer of 1966.
Outside of performances (except for two occasions when Paul McCartney and John Lennon escaped to tour Tokyo with members of their entourage), the band stayed in hotel rooms at the behest of local authorities who were concerned for their safety. The band’s visit to the country attracted enthusiastic fans and protesters alike; There were reports of threats from Japanese nationalists; There were also some who were unhappy with a Western rock band playing in an arena considered the spiritual home of martial arts. We are talking about the Japanese arena “Nippon Budokan”.
Art materials were brought to the hotel. Soon the group gathered around a table with a blank sheet of Japanese art paper and a lamp roughly in the middle. Everyone drew something different. The album that would become Revolver was playing in the background.
Photographer Robert Whitaker captured the group at work. “I’ve never seen them as calm and content as they are now,” he said.
The Beatles were no strangers to art. Lennon went to art school and McCartney studied it, too. George Harrison and Ringo Starr also frequently drew for themselves.
He previously directed the Beatles TV series Peter Jackson statedYoko did not disband the Ono Quartet.