The Beatles are officially million-dollar painters: the only known surviving work that Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and John Lennon worked on together just sold at auction on 1 February for $1.74 million (about £1.38 million) at Christie's New York. Considerably surpassing its pre-auction estimate of $400,000-600,000, the painting emphasises how the power of Beatlemania endures.
See also: The Only Painting By The Beatles Goes to Auction
In the summer of 1966, The Beatles had traveled to Japan on tour to play five nights of concerts at the Budokan arena in Tokyo from 29 June to 3 July. Due to the frenzy and mobs surrounding the four musicians, the Japanese authorities decided to keep them sequestered in their presidential suite at the Hilton Hotel and then securely shuttled to the concert hall. It was during this time that the Beatles decided to paint a single artwork together, with each of them dedicated to one quadrant of the paper. The resulting abstract work, lush with psychedelic colour, geometric shapes and swirling patterns, was later dubbed Images of a Woman by a Japanese journalist in the 1980s.
The artwork also marks an important time in the Beatles' career: their summer of touring in 1966 would be their last. Within a few weeks of their Japan tour, they decided to retire from live performances and exclusively worked in studio until the group's break up in 1970.
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Images of a Woman is also the most expensive piece of Beatles memorabilia to be signed by all four members. Most recently, in July 2023, the break-up document signed by all four Beatles sold for $240,000 at auction.
