Dec 22 (CNN) - The Beatles were in the middle of a tour that had them play five shows in just three days at Japan's famed Nippon Budokan arena — but when they weren’t performing, they were holed up in the presidential suite of the Tokyo Hilton creating a work of art that came to be known as "Images of a Woman."
That painting, believed by some experts to be the only artwork jointly made by all four Beatles (or at least signed by all four), will be up for sale at Christie's auction house in New York on February 1.
“Images of a Woman” is estimated to fetch somewhere in the realm of $400,000 to $600,000 and “crystallizes a magic moment in Beatles history,” said Christie’s specialist Casey Rogers during a phone interview.
As the story goes, the Fab Four spent about 100 hours in Japan during their 1966 tour.
Outside of performing (and aside from two instances where Paul McCartney and John Lennon each slipped out with members of their entourage for sightseeing adventures in Tokyo), the group stayed put in their hotel room at the behest of local authorities who were concerned about their safety.
A visitor gifted them some art supplies, according to Christie’s press release; the band soon wound up around a table, with a blank sheet of Japanese art paper in the middle and a lamp roughly centered on top of it. Each Beatle sat at a corner, painting something different. Recordings for the album that would become “Revolver” played in the background. ...continue reading
