The Beatles – St.Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Limited Edition Album Cover Fine Art Print

Personally numbered and signed by Peter Blake in pencil – Atelier: PierreOptique Publishing

Medium: Screenprint with 24 colours on Somerset tub sized paper 410gsm. Spot glazed

The Grammy Award-winning album packaging was created by art

director Robert Fraser, mostly in collaboration with

McCartney, designed by Peter Blake, his wife Jann Haworth,

and photographed by Michael Cooper. It featured a colourful

collage of life-sized cardboard models of famous people on

the front of the album cover and lyrics printed on the back

cover, the first time this had been done on an English pop

LP. The suits were designed by Manuel Cuevas. Among the

insignia on their uniforms are:

Ontario Provincial Police flash on McCartney’s sleeve

Art director Robert Fraser was a prominent London art dealer

who ran his own gallery and sponsored exhibitions at the

Indica Gallery, through which he had become a close friend

of McCartney, and it was at his strong urging that the group

abandoned their original cover design, a psychedelic

painting by The Fool. The Fool’s design for the inner sleeve

was, however, used for the first few pressings.

According to Blake, the original concept was to create a

scene that showed the Sgt. Pepper band performing in a park;

this gradually evolved into its final form, which shows the

Beatles, as the Sgt. Pepper band, surrounded by a large

group of their heroes, rendered as lifesized cut-out

figures.

The collage depicted more than 70 famous people, including

writers, musicians, film stars and (at Harrison’s request) a

number of Indian gurus. The final grouping included Marlene

Dietrich, Carl Gustav Jung, W.C. Fields, Diana Dors, Bob

Dylan, Marilyn Monroe, Aldous Huxley, Karlheinz Stockhausen,

Sigmund Freud, Aleister Crowley, Edgar Allan Poe, Karl Marx,

Oscar Wilde, William S. Burroughs, Marlon Brando, Stan

Laurel and Oliver Hardy, and controversial comedian Lenny

Bruce. Also included was the image of the original Beatles

bass player, the late Stuart Sutcliffe. Pete Best said in a

later NPR interview that Lennon borrowed family medals from

his mother Mona for the shoot, on condition he not lose

them. Adolf Hitler and Jesus Christ were requested by

Lennon, but ultimately they were left out.