BEATLES SERGEANT PEPPER COVER PRIOR TO RELEASE PHOTO

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AFTER MANY PHONE CALLS TO THE MY SUPPLIER, THE COST HAS BEEN LOWERED ON THE HIGHER NUMBERED PRINTS T IS NO WAY TO DESCRIBE IN WORDS THE QUALITY AND RESOLUTION THAT HAS BEEN ACHIEVED ..AND NO WAY TO SHOW YOU IN AN EBAY PHOTO....THE IMAGED WAS PRODUCED USING A 360 DPI DIGITAL PROCESS.....TRULY AMAZING IN PERSON..... YOU ARE BIDDING ON A MUSEUM QUALITY PHOTO LAB HIGH RESOLUTION PRINT OF THE SERGEANT PEPPER ALBUM COVER, BEFORE IT WAS EDITED FOR THE ALBUM... THIS IS MADE FROM A PHOTO DONE DIRECTLY FROM THE ORIGINAL 35MM NEGATIVE... THIS IS ALSO UNEDITED, UNCROPPED, UNRETOUCHED IN ANY WAY, AND LOOKS ABSOLUTELY AND COMPLETELY AS IT WAS ORIGINALLY PHOTOGRAPHED.... THE COLORS AND RESOLUTION LOOK LIKE IT WAS DONE 20 MINUTES AGO....NOT OVER 40 YEARS AGO EVERY EFFORT HAS BEEN MADE TO GIVE YOU EXACTLY WHAT THE PHOTO EDITORS RECEIVED, TO BEGIN THEIR PROCESS.... IS HOW IT HAPPENED.. THE SIZE IS APPROX. 15 x 18 ON A 16 X 20 SHEET OF ACID FREE MUSEUM QUALITY STOCK... this is a numbered limited edition print.....YOU ARE BIDDING ON NUMBER 1257 OF A CLOSED RUN OF 1967 COPIES...AFTER THESE HAVE BEEN ALL SOLD, THEY WILL NEVER BE MADE AVAILABLE AGAIN..... It was more than 40 years ago. On the evening of March 30, 1967, four young musicians gatd with a large group of artists and assistants in a London studio to shoot a photograph for an album cover. The album, to be called "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," would, of course, become synonymous with the creative revolution of the 1960s. The cover artwork, a photomontage of the Beatles posing for photographer Michael Cooper among a gallery of several dozen celebrities ("People We Like," as the crew took to calling them) was itself a radical departure, with its elaborately designed "gatefold" layout, bonus insert, and printed song lyrics -- the latter a first in pop. Behind the real-life Beatles, who were dressed in candy-colored military-band costumes and sported newly cultivated mustaches, the "crowd" was actually made up of wax figures and cardboard cutouts of singers, actors, writers, artists, athletes, and critical thinkers -- some of them (Marlon Brando, Bob Dylan) as familiar as the Beatles themselves, others (Bobby Breen?) now as obsolete as monaural recording. The cover concept was originally conceived by Paul McCartney and London art dealer Robert Fraser as a tableau for a fictitious Salvation Army-style brass band. But in the hands of its designers, then-husband-and-wife Pop artists Peter Blake and Jann Haworth (who ended up choosing more than half of the faces), it became a droll satire of celebrity and influence. While many of the famous figures in the gallery were heroes to the Beatles, others were chosen out of sheer, Beatlesque audacity. The group's record company, EMI, rejected three of John Lennon's suggestions -- Jesus, Gandhi, and Hitler. Inspired by Victorian-era composite photographs, Dada collage artists, and Pop artist Richard Hamilton's surreal cut-and-paste suburban scenes, the "Sgt. Pepper" cover has become a visual touchstone. Haworth, now living in Utah, still has the Grammy she and her ex-husband shared for the graphic design: "I let the children play with it," she says with a laugh. "The trumpet fell off, and the dog chewed on it. It's been destroyed in an iconoclastic way." 1. Sri Yukteswar Giri: Indian guru, one of four chosen for the cover by George Harrison. 2. Aleister Crowley: Notorious mystic, polymath, and drug user chosen, designer Jann Haworth says, by John Lennon. 3.Mae West: "What would I be doing in a lonely hearts club?" she reportedly joked. Ringo Starr appeared in her 1978 film "Sextette." 4.Lenny Bruce: By 1967, the Beatles shared some of the late comic's persecution complex. 5.Karlheinz Stockhausen: Avant-garde composer who (though chosen by McCartney) once credited Lennon as the crucial link between pop and "serious" music. 6.W.C. Fields: Wisecracking actor, apparently chosen by Peter Blake. <... read more

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