.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This Marlene Dietrich standee has a prominent position in the crowd on the Sgt. Pepper cover. It is one of only three characters that can be seen in full, and is located beside George Harrison, to the right of the drum. It is tempting to speculate that the conspicuous positioning of the Dietrich standee may have been influenced by The Beatles themselves. The group had met and performed on the same stage as the Hollywood star in 1963, at the Royal Variety Show, London Palladium on the 4th November. Photographer Dezo Hoffmann who had worked with Dietrich in the past commented ...to me, she had the same innocent spirit of the Beatles, so I struggled to get a picture of them together... at the photocall for the show.
The groundbreaking Sgt. Pepper album cover remains the most famous record sleeve image of all time, epitomising the spirit of the age and colouring all that followed. It has recently been described as ...an undimming pop-art fantasia to which the beautiful people were given starring roles and chaperoned by occultists and harbingers of gothic doom. Less a record sleeve, more a magical totem of its age and ours... The album itself was a major production taking nine months to record, and The Beatles wanted the cover to complement the music and to be as visually engaging as possible. For their outfits they went to theatrical costumiers Bermans, ordering military-style uniforms in bright psychedelic colours in materials of their choice. Having decided on the title and ordered the uniforms, on the advice of gallery owner and friend Robert Fraser, they brought in Peter Blake, a leading exponent of Pop Art, to design the cover. Blake recalled that ..Getting a professional fine artist to design a record cover hadn't happened before that... In an interview, he recounted...Before I was involved, they had decided that it would be called 'Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band' and so the concept of the Beatles calling themselves by another name already existed. The uniforms had been made and the concept was to have the record like a concert with an overture...I came into something that was taken to that degree, and I suggested that they had just played a concert in a park.. They were posing for a photograph and behind them was a crowd of fans who had been at the concert. By making cutouts, it could be anybody, dead or alive or even fictitous. If they wanted Hansel and Gretel, I could paint them and the painting could be photographed and blown up. I said, 'Give me a list' to the four Beatles, John and Paul both gave me long lists, George would only suggest Indian gurus, and Ringo said 'Whatever the others say is fine by me'. He didn't suggest anyone. It's an interesting insight into them... McCartney's list apparently included Fred Astaire and William Burroughs and Lennon's included Jesus (a reference to his 'Beatles are bigger than God' claim) and Hitler. Two of the sixty characters were contemporary musicians, Bob Dylan, chosen by Lennon, and Dion, chosen by Blake. According to Peter Blake's assistant Nigel Hartnup ...It was my job to find photos of all the people on the final list and make life-size copies and colour them to Peter Blake's specification. They were then mounted onto hardboard and cut out. On the day of the shoot I had to stand on a stool shouting 'Tilt Aleister Crowley back, shift Bob Dylan to the left.... The yellow shade of Dietrich's robe as pictured on the final version of the cover, suggests that further tinting was also carried out on the chosen cover image.
On the 30th March 1967 the photo shoot took place in Chelsea, London at Michael Cooper's studio. When the cover was finished, Sir Joseph Lockwood brought a copy of it to a meeting with Paul McCartney which had all the characters wiped out and replaced with blue sky. He was worried that they would be sued. So, to avoid legal complications, all the characters were sent a letter to ask for their permission to be included. Infamously, Mae West wrote back asking What would I be doing in a Lonely Hearts Club? You can't leave me in. However, after a personal response from The Beatles, she eventually agreed.
In addition to the standees was a set of wax-works of The Beatles from Madame Tussauds. Blake explained the use of this device as ...a comment on the fact that the record wasn't really by The Beatles but by Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, so The Beatles themselves were in the audience watching Sgt. Pepper's band... Blake also recalled how the cover was set up, first the standees were put up to form a crowd, then a stage was built in front of them for The Beatles to stand on, and in front of The Beatles, a flowerbed. Blake and The Beatles refute popular speculation of the time, that a number of the plants in the ornamental display were of the marijuana variety. The greenery had been bought at a local florist's and was apparently aucuba japonica vareigata or privet hedge. The concrete bust which stands at Harrison's feet apparently came from John Lennon's garden at Kenwood and is thought to have been the model for Blake's portrait of 'Sgt. Pepper' reproduced on the album's insert.
McCartney said of their aims for the cover...We wanted the whole of 'Pepper' to be so that you could look at the front cover for years, and study all those people and read all the words on the back... Lennon commented in 1967...Sgt. Pepper...is one of the most important steps in our career. It had to be just right. We tried, and I think succeeded in achieving what we set out to do...
The characters included on the cover from left to right are:
Top Row: Sri Yukteswar Gigi, Aleister Crowley, Mae West, Lenny Bruce, Stockhausen, W.C.Fields, Carl Jung, Edgar Allan Poe, Fred Astaire, Richard Merkin, The Varga Girl, Huntz Hall, Simon Rodia, Bob Dylan
Second Row: Aubrey Beardsley, Sir Robert Peel, Aldous Huxley, Dylan Thomas, Terry Southern, Dion, Tony Curtis, Wallace Berman, Tommy Handley, Marilyn Monroe, William Burroughs, Sri Mahavatara Babaji, Stan Laurel, Richard Linder, Oliver Hardy, Karl Marx, H.G.Wells, Sri Paramahansa, Lawrence of Arabia, Anonymous
Third Row: Stuart Sutcliffe, Frank Petty Girl, Max Miller, Frank Petty Girl, Marlon Brando, Tom Mix, Oscar Wilde, Tyrone Power, Larry Bell, Dr.D.Livingstone, Johnny Weissmuller, Stephen Crane, Issy Bonn, George Bernard Shaw, H.S.Westermann, Albert Stubbins, Sri Iahiri Mahasaya, Lewis Carroll
Bottom Row: Sonny Liston, George Harrison wax model, John Lennon wax model, Shirley Temple, Ringo Starr wax model, Paul McCartney wax model, Albert Einstein, Bobby Breen, Marlene Dietrich, American Legionaire, Diana Dors, Shirley Temple
EMI were apparently horrified when they received the final costs for the sleeve of £2,867.25s.3d. According to Blake ..They usually budgeted for £25 a photograph and they probably expected to go up to £75 for The Beatles, but they hadn't accounted for the cost of retouching the cut-out figures and Robert Fraser and Michael Cooper's fees... Blake was only paid £200 but was happy with that. At the end of the day it was a job like any other
The groundbreaking Sgt. Pepper album cover remains the most famous record sleeve image of all time, epitomising the spirit of the age and colouring all that followed. It has recently been described as ...an undimming pop-art fantasia to which the beautiful people were given starring roles and chaperoned by occultists and harbingers of gothic doom. Less a record sleeve, more a magical totem of its age and ours... The album itself was a major production taking nine months to record, and The Beatles wanted the cover to complement the music and to be as visually engaging as possible. For their outfits they went to theatrical costumiers Bermans, ordering military-style uniforms in bright psychedelic colours in materials of their choice. Having decided on the title and ordered the uniforms, on the advice of gallery owner and friend Robert Fraser, they brought in Peter Blake, a leading exponent of Pop Art, to design the cover. Blake recalled that ..Getting a professional fine artist to design a record cover hadn't happened before that... In an interview, he recounted...Before I was involved, they had decided that it would be called 'Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band' and so the concept of the Beatles calling themselves by another name already existed. The uniforms had been made and the concept was to have the record like a concert with an overture...I came into something that was taken to that degree, and I suggested that they had just played a concert in a park.. They were posing for a photograph and behind them was a crowd of fans who had been at the concert. By making cutouts, it could be anybody, dead or alive or even fictitous. If they wanted Hansel and Gretel, I could paint them and the painting could be photographed and blown up. I said, 'Give me a list' to the four Beatles, John and Paul both gave me long lists, George would only suggest Indian gurus, and Ringo said 'Whatever the others say is fine by me'. He didn't suggest anyone. It's an interesting insight into them... McCartney's list apparently included Fred Astaire and William Burroughs and Lennon's included Jesus (a reference to his 'Beatles are bigger than God' claim) and Hitler. Two of the sixty characters were contemporary musicians, Bob Dylan, chosen by Lennon, and Dion, chosen by Blake. According to Peter Blake's assistant Nigel Hartnup ...It was my job to find photos of all the people on the final list and make life-size copies and colour them to Peter Blake's specification. They were then mounted onto hardboard and cut out. On the day of the shoot I had to stand on a stool shouting 'Tilt Aleister Crowley back, shift Bob Dylan to the left.... The yellow shade of Dietrich's robe as pictured on the final version of the cover, suggests that further tinting was also carried out on the chosen cover image.
On the 30th March 1967 the photo shoot took place in Chelsea, London at Michael Cooper's studio. When the cover was finished, Sir Joseph Lockwood brought a copy of it to a meeting with Paul McCartney which had all the characters wiped out and replaced with blue sky. He was worried that they would be sued. So, to avoid legal complications, all the characters were sent a letter to ask for their permission to be included. Infamously, Mae West wrote back asking What would I be doing in a Lonely Hearts Club? You can't leave me in. However, after a personal response from The Beatles, she eventually agreed.
In addition to the standees was a set of wax-works of The Beatles from Madame Tussauds. Blake explained the use of this device as ...a comment on the fact that the record wasn't really by The Beatles but by Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, so The Beatles themselves were in the audience watching Sgt. Pepper's band... Blake also recalled how the cover was set up, first the standees were put up to form a crowd, then a stage was built in front of them for The Beatles to stand on, and in front of The Beatles, a flowerbed. Blake and The Beatles refute popular speculation of the time, that a number of the plants in the ornamental display were of the marijuana variety. The greenery had been bought at a local florist's and was apparently aucuba japonica vareigata or privet hedge. The concrete bust which stands at Harrison's feet apparently came from John Lennon's garden at Kenwood and is thought to have been the model for Blake's portrait of 'Sgt. Pepper' reproduced on the album's insert.
McCartney said of their aims for the cover...We wanted the whole of 'Pepper' to be so that you could look at the front cover for years, and study all those people and read all the words on the back... Lennon commented in 1967...Sgt. Pepper...is one of the most important steps in our career. It had to be just right. We tried, and I think succeeded in achieving what we set out to do...
The characters included on the cover from left to right are:
Top Row: Sri Yukteswar Gigi, Aleister Crowley, Mae West, Lenny Bruce, Stockhausen, W.C.Fields, Carl Jung, Edgar Allan Poe, Fred Astaire, Richard Merkin, The Varga Girl, Huntz Hall, Simon Rodia, Bob Dylan
Second Row: Aubrey Beardsley, Sir Robert Peel, Aldous Huxley, Dylan Thomas, Terry Southern, Dion, Tony Curtis, Wallace Berman, Tommy Handley, Marilyn Monroe, William Burroughs, Sri Mahavatara Babaji, Stan Laurel, Richard Linder, Oliver Hardy, Karl Marx, H.G.Wells, Sri Paramahansa, Lawrence of Arabia, Anonymous
Third Row: Stuart Sutcliffe, Frank Petty Girl, Max Miller, Frank Petty Girl, Marlon Brando, Tom Mix, Oscar Wilde, Tyrone Power, Larry Bell, Dr.D.Livingstone, Johnny Weissmuller, Stephen Crane, Issy Bonn, George Bernard Shaw, H.S.Westermann, Albert Stubbins, Sri Iahiri Mahasaya, Lewis Carroll
Bottom Row: Sonny Liston, George Harrison wax model, John Lennon wax model, Shirley Temple, Ringo Starr wax model, Paul McCartney wax model, Albert Einstein, Bobby Breen, Marlene Dietrich, American Legionaire, Diana Dors, Shirley Temple
EMI were apparently horrified when they received the final costs for the sleeve of £2,867.25s.3d. According to Blake ..They usually budgeted for £25 a photograph and they probably expected to go up to £75 for The Beatles, but they hadn't accounted for the cost of retouching the cut-out figures and Robert Fraser and Michael Cooper's fees... Blake was only paid £200 but was happy with that. At the end of the day it was a job like any other