A painting made collaboratively by the Beatles during their tour of Japan in 1966 has sold for $1.74 million in an auction at Christie’s, according to the auction house.
Christie’s said the work later titled “Images of a Woman,” auctioned in New York on Thursday, is “the only known painting made and signed” by all four members of the renowned British rock band — John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
While holed up between shows in a suite of the old Tokyo Hilton Hotel, a refuge from huge crowds of their fans in the Japanese capital, the four spent time painting with watercolors and acrylics on a sheet of traditional Japanese “washi” paper. Each member painted from one corner toward the middle, where they all signed their autographs.
The band performed at the Nippon Budokan hall in Tokyo from June 30 to July 2, and played their final tour concert in late August of that year in San Francisco.
“The Beatles gave up touring two months after they were in Tokyo, and they never went back as a group,” the Beatles’ biographer Mark Lewisohn was quoted as saying on Christie’s website.
“That’s one of the reasons this painting is so special, because they didn’t have this kind of time together again, stuck in a hotel room with nothing to do,” the historian said.
