John Byrne

From Wikipedia:

John Patrick Byrne (6 January 1940 – 30 November 2023) was a Scottish playwright, screenwriter, artist and designer. He wrote The Slab Boys Trilogy, plays which explore working-class life in Scotland, and the TV dramas Tutti Frutti and Your Cheatin’ Heart. Byrne was also a painter, printmaker and scenic designer.

[…] At the start of his career, in an attempt to break in to the London art world, he sent one of his works to the Portal Gallery, claiming it was by his father Patrick Byrne, simply signed “Patrick”. A cover letter detailed his father’s hard, lonely life, and claimed that there were another 50 works by him at his small house in Dunoon. The hoax was found out, but the exhibition attracted some attention – in particular from the Beatles, who approached him to design the cover of the White Album. They decided against using his work, but it was subsequently used for the 1980 compilation The Beatles Ballads. Up until his death, he frequently signed his works with the name Patrick, most notably, “The American Boy”, completed in 1971. […]

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