Friday, February 23, 1968
The Daily Express publishes psychedelic photos of The Beatles
Last updated on August 24, 2024
Friday, February 23, 1968
Last updated on August 24, 2024
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Article Feb 23, 1968 • The Daily Express publishes psychedelic photos of The Beatles
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In August 1967, Richard Avedon photographed the Beatles. The black-and-white photos of the four Beatles were transformed into vivid, psychedelic images and published for the first time in the January 9, 1968 edition of the US magazine Look.
In keeping with the Beatles’ pioneering desire to experiment with unconventional formats in their music and the packaging of their albums, their manager Brian Epstein commissioned Avedon to photograph the band members and design a set of posters that would visually capture the new psychedelic direction of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour. Avedon overlaid the solarized prints with Day-Glo colors and symbolic attributes Ringo’s white peace dove, George’s mystical henna patterns, Paul’s flower power, and John’s trippy eyeglasses. The posters were printed in four different countries and released simultaneously through popular magazines for maximum international impact.
From Richard Avedon. Paul McCartney. 1967 | MoMA
In the UK, the Daily Express published those photos in its February 23, 1968 edition.
[The portraits] were published simultaneously by Stern Magazine in Germany, Daily Express in England, Varagids in Holland and Look Magazine in the USA. In my native Norway, they were printed in youth magazine Det Nye, and they were probably printed in one or other magazine in every country where The Beatles were popular. The Varagids prints are the smallest, measuring 18.5″ x 26.77″ (47 cm x 68 cm). The Stern and Daily Express versions measure 19 x 27″ (47,7cm x 68,7cm), the Look versions are slightly larger, at 22.5″ x 31″ (57.15 cm x 78.74 cm).
From Richard Avedon’s Beatles portraits – The Daily Beatle (webgrafikk.com)
A form in the magazine allowed readers to buy posters of the photos, along with a special Beatles banner (“Super-sized Beatle banner. Order your four big full colour posters now and get a free 3 1/2 ft. wide black and white Beatle Banner of the whole swinging group“).
Those psychedelic photos would later be used for the packaging of the 2000 compilation album, “1”.
The Beatles Diary Volume 1: The Beatles Years
"With greatly expanded text, this is the most revealing and frank personal 30-year chronicle of the group ever written. Insider Barry Miles covers the Beatles story from childhood to the break-up of the group."
We owe a lot to Barry Miles for the creation of those pages, but you really have to buy this book to get all the details - a day to day chronology of what happened to the four Beatles during the Beatles years!
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