A painting created collaboratively by all four Beatles in 1966 is being offered as part of a music memorabilia sale by Philip Weiss Auctions, in Oceanside, N.Y., on Sept. 14. The auction house estimates that the painting, now called “Images of a Woman,†will sell for between $80,000 and $120,000.
The group produced the work during a visit to Tokyo in 1966, as a way to relieve the tedium of being all but locked into their hotel rooms by their security-conscious Japanese hosts. They were concerned about death threats the group had received from devotees of sumo wrestling, who regarded their engagement at the Budokan arena to be a matter of sacrilege. After Paul McCartn ey and John Lennon slipped out for some unchaperoned touring, security was tightened.
To while away the hours, the group set a 30-inch by 40-inch piece of white paper on a large table, put a lamp in the middle (slightly off center) and each began painting a corner of the sheet using bright red, yellow, black, blue and green oil paints. When they finished the abstract work, which anticipates the psychedelia that would explode through the pop world a year later, they removed the lamp and signed their names around the edge of the white circle that the lamp left.
The Beatles gave the painting to Tetsusaburo Shimoyama, the president of their Japanese fan club. Mr. Weiss said that be believed that the current owner bought the painting from Mr. Shimoyama, possibly in the 1990s. It was offered for sale on eBay in 2002, but was withdrawn after it failed to meet the seller's minimum.
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