Images of a Woman by The Beatles
A painting created and signed by all four members of the Beatles will be up for sale at Christie’s this February. In 1966, Beatlemania was at its height. The group had been touring nonstop for several years, traversing the globe from Britain to the United States to Japan. During their stay in Tokyo, they spent much of their time in the presidential suite at the Tokyo Hilton. Police advised that the Beatles stay at their hotel as much as possible since there were serious safety concerns due to some Japanese people’s response to the band playing shows in the country. Between June 30th and July 2nd, the Beatles were scheduled to play five shows at Tokyo’s famous Nippon Budokan stadium. Some were unhappy since the venue was exclusively used for martial arts events. Japanese nationalists, as well as supporters and practitioners of judo, kendo, karate, and other traditional Japanese martial arts, felt that having a Western musical group play a concert there would be disrespectful. Nonetheless, the Beatles played their shows, paving the way for other artists to perform at the venue, most notably Cheap Trick in 1978 and ABBA in 1980.
While locked in their suite, the Beatles found ways to pass the time. After a fan gifted them some art supplies, they created the painting, which was later called Images of a Woman. John Lennon was the only member of the group with any formal arts training, having attended classes at the Liverpool College of Art before pursuing music professionally. However, all four members of the band created the painting in their hotel room by placing a lamp in the center of the paper and then each man focusing on their respective corners. The photographer Robert Whitaker, who was accompanying the band, said, “I never saw them calmer or more contented than at this time”. The bandmates would look forward to completing the painting after ending each Budokan show. Whitaker’s photograph showing the painting’s creation can attest to this. The blank circle near the center is where the lamp was placed, with all four Beatles placing their signatures there corresponding to their corner of the work. Only a couple of months after their Japanese tour dates, the group would quit touring and focus mainly on working in the studio.
The band donated the painting to a charity auction, where Tetsusaburo Shimoyama bought it. Shimoyama was a Japanese entertainment executive and the Tokyo Beatles fan club president. It last sold in 2012 at Philip Weiss Auctions, a small auction house on Long Island, for $155,250 w/p. The painting will now be featured during the Exceptional Sale, an auction at Christie’s New York consisting of various items, including decorative arts, antiquities, furniture, and memorabilia. Images of a Woman is predicted to be one of the sale’s top lots, along with a gold medal from the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, a collection of porcelain, and an example of the gemstone rubellite tourmaline. Christie predicts Images of a Woman will sell for anywhere between $400K and $600K. The painting is not the only music-related item in the sale. A Gretsch guitar believed to have been owned by Elvis Presley will be crossing the block that day as well, along with a gold crocheted vest worn by Janis Joplin, most famously at a photo shoot in 1970.