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拍品专文
A musical and cultural milestone released in 1967, the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was the first 'concept album’ produced on a grand scale. While there has been much analysis about the songs on the album, not much has been written about other artistic aspects of the project--most importantly the production of the memorable album sleeve.
The album had already been recorded when Paul McCartney met with producers Neil Aspinall and Mal Evans to discuss how the sleeve should look. In keeping with the lyrics of the title track, Paul’s idea was that the group should be depicted as the kind of band that would play in a park bandstand, a concept promoted by light applause that can be heard clearly throughout the album and the Beatles’ vivid satin uniforms. The 'audience’ behind the band is an elaborate cardboard montage, with the sky above and a grave below, the latter connoting the passing of the 'old’ Beatles. The crowd is composed of personalities suggested by the band from many eras and from a wide range of occupations. They include Mahatma Ghandi (with palm leaf over his face), Sonny Liston, Edgar Allan Poe, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Shirley Temple who actually appears three times! Interestingly, the actor Leo Gorcey was originally in this image, but was later removed from the negative used to print the final album cover because he demanded a fee for using his likeness. The resulting empty space was filed in with a palm leaf etched onto the negative.
This pristine and unique print is in a broader cropping than the album cover and shows much 'behind-the-scenes’ activity, including the raw wood shelving that was used to support some of the backdrop, the black paper stretched across the set to create shadows between the figures and electrical wires for set lights. This is the only known dye-transfer print of the image.
The album had already been recorded when Paul McCartney met with producers Neil Aspinall and Mal Evans to discuss how the sleeve should look. In keeping with the lyrics of the title track, Paul’s idea was that the group should be depicted as the kind of band that would play in a park bandstand, a concept promoted by light applause that can be heard clearly throughout the album and the Beatles’ vivid satin uniforms. The 'audience’ behind the band is an elaborate cardboard montage, with the sky above and a grave below, the latter connoting the passing of the 'old’ Beatles. The crowd is composed of personalities suggested by the band from many eras and from a wide range of occupations. They include Mahatma Ghandi (with palm leaf over his face), Sonny Liston, Edgar Allan Poe, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Shirley Temple who actually appears three times! Interestingly, the actor Leo Gorcey was originally in this image, but was later removed from the negative used to print the final album cover because he demanded a fee for using his likeness. The resulting empty space was filed in with a palm leaf etched onto the negative.
This pristine and unique print is in a broader cropping than the album cover and shows much 'behind-the-scenes’ activity, including the raw wood shelving that was used to support some of the backdrop, the black paper stretched across the set to create shadows between the figures and electrical wires for set lights. This is the only known dye-transfer print of the image.