List of images on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/50/Sgt._Pepper%27s_Lonely_Hearts_Club_Band.jpg)
The Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band has a widely recognized album cover that depicts several dozen celebrities and other images. The image was made by posing the Beatles in front of life-sized, black-and-white photographs pasted onto hardboard and hand-tinted.[1]
It was created by Jann Haworth and Peter Blake, who in 1967 won the Grammy Award for Best Album Cover, Graphic Arts, for their work on it.[2] Blake has said that the intention was to show a new band surrounded by fans after a performance.[1][3]
I suggested that they had just played a concert in the park. They were posing for a photograph and the crowd behind them was a crowd of fans who had been at the concert. Having decided on this, then, by making cut-outs, the fans could be anybody, dead or alive, real or fictitious. If we wanted Hansel and Gretel, I could paint them and they could be photographed and blown up. I asked the four Beatles for a list and I did one myself. Robert Fraser did a list and I can't remember whether Brian Epstein did one or not. The way that worked out was fascinating. John gave me a list and so did Paul. George suggested only Indian gurus, about six of them, and Ringo said, "Whatever the others say is fine by me" and didn't suggest anyone. It's an insight into their characters. All kinds of people were suggested. Hitler was there; he is actually in the set-up, but he is covered by the Beatles themselves as we felt he was too controversial. The same applied to Jesus. There were only two of their contemporaries on the cover. Bob Dylan was suggested by John and I put on Dion because he is a great favourite of mine.[4]
People on the cover
Top row
- (1) Sri Yukteswar Giri (Hindu guru)
- (2) Aleister Crowley (occultist)
- (3) Mae West (actress)
- (4) Lenny Bruce (comedian)
- (5) Karlheinz Stockhausen (composer)
- (6) W. C. Fields (comedian/actor)
- (7) Carl Jung (psychiatrist)
- (8) Edgar Allan Poe (writer)
- (9) Fred Astaire (actor/dancer)[5]
- (10) Richard Merkin (artist and friend of Peter Blake)[5]
- (11) The Vargas Girl (by artist Alberto Vargas)[5]
- (12) Leo Gorcey (image was removed from cover, but a space remains)
- (13) Huntz Hall (actor)
- (14) Simon Rodia (designer and builder of the Watts Towers)
- (15) Bob Dylan (singer/songwriter)
Second row
- (16) Aubrey Beardsley (illustrator)
- (17) Sir Robert Peel (19th century British Prime Minister)
- (18) Aldous Huxley (writer)
- (19) Dylan Thomas (poet)
- (20) Terry Southern (writer)
- (21) Dion DiMucci (singer/songwriter)
- (22) Tony Curtis (actor)
- (23) Wallace Berman (artist)
- (24) Tommy Handley (comedian)
- (25) Marilyn Monroe (actress)
- (26) William S. Burroughs (writer)
- (27) Sri Mahavatar Babaji (Hindu guru)
- (28) Stan Laurel (actor/comedian)
- (29) Richard Lindner (artist)
- (30) Oliver Hardy (actor/comedian)
- (31) Karl Marx (political philosopher)
- (32) H. G. Wells (writer)
- (33) Sri Paramahansa Yogananda (Hindu guru)
- (34A) James Joyce (Irish poet and novelist) – barely visible below Bob Dylan
- (34) Anonymous (hairdresser's wax dummy)
Third row
- (35) Stuart Sutcliffe (artist/former Beatle)
- (36) Anonymous (hairdresser's wax dummy)
- (37) Max Miller (comedian)
- (38) A "Petty Girl" (by artist George Petty)
- (39) Marlon Brando (actor)
- (40) Tom Mix (actor)
- (41) Oscar Wilde (writer)
- (42) Tyrone Power (actor)
- (43) Larry Bell (artist)
- (44) David Livingstone (missionary/explorer)
- (45) Johnny Weissmuller (Olympic swimmer/Tarzan actor)
- (46) Stephen Crane (writer) – barely visible between Issy Bonn's head and raised arm
- (47) Issy Bonn (comedian)
- (48) George Bernard Shaw (playwright)
- (49) H. C. Westermann (sculptor)
- (50) Albert Stubbins (English footballer)
- (51) Sri Lahiri Mahasaya (guru)
- (52) Lewis Carroll (writer)
- (53) T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia")
Front row
- (54) Wax model of Sonny Liston (boxer)
- (55) A "Petty Girl" (by George Petty)
- (56) Wax model of George Harrison
- (57) Wax model of John Lennon
- (58) Shirley Temple (child actress) – barely visible behind the wax models of John and Ringo, first of three appearances on the cover
- (59) Wax model of Ringo Starr
- (60) Wax model of Paul McCartney
- (61) Albert Einstein (physicist) – largely obscured
- (62) John Lennon holding a French horn
- (63) Ringo Starr holding a trumpet
- (64) Paul McCartney holding a cor anglais
- (65) George Harrison holding a piccolo
- (65A) Bette Davis (actress) – hair barely visible on top of George's shoulder
- (66) Bobby Breen (singer)
- (67) Marlene Dietrich (actress/singer)
- (68) Mahatma Gandhi was planned for this position, but was deleted prior to publication
- (69) An American legionnaire[6]
- (70) Wax model of Diana Dors (actress)
- (71) Shirley Temple (child actress) – second appearance on the cover
Props on the cover
- A hookah (water pipe)
- A Fukusuke, Japanese figure associated with good luck
- A stone figure of Snow White
- A baritone horn
- A drumhead, designed by fairground artist Joe Ephgrave[7]
- An idol of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi
- A trophy
- An antique stone bust of a Victorian man[8] brought over from John Lennon's house (which provided the basis for the album's cutout portrait of Sgt. Pepper)[9]
- A 9-inch (23 cm) Sony television set, apparently owned by Paul McCartney (though claimed by Blake to have been Lennon's);[8] the receipt, bearing McCartney's signature, is owned by a curator of a museum dedicated to the Beatles in Japan.[10]
- A stone figure of a girl
- A ceramic Mexican craft known as a Tree of Life from Metepec, substituted at the request of Germán Valdés, who had been asked to give consent for his image to appear
- Cloth grandmother-figure by Jann Haworth
- Cloth doll by Haworth of Shirley Temple wearing a sweater that reads "Welcome The Rolling Stones Good Guys" – third and last appearance on the cover
- A three-stringed flower guitar
- Another stone figure
- A garden gnome
- A cloth snake[8]
- Flowers[8]
People excluded from the cover
- (12) Leo Gorcey – was modelled and originally included to the left of Huntz Hall, but he was subsequently removed when a fee of $400 ($3,548 in 2020 terms) was requested for the use of the actor's likeness.[11][12]
- (45C) Adolf Hitler – was requested by Lennon[13] and modelled behind the band (to the right of Larry Bell), but was moved out of frame (being "too controversial", according to Blake)[4] and replaced by Johnny Weissmuller.[14][15] Blake insists that Hitler was hidden behind the band in the final shoot,[4][16] but this is not apparent from any published photographs showing the nearly complete setup—even in those unobscured by the band.[14][15][17]
- (54A) Unidentified laughing figure – barely visible
- (56A) Sophia Loren (actress) – behind the Beatles' waxworks
- (58A) Marcello Mastroianni (actor) – behind the Beatles' waxworks, only the top of the hat is slightly visible
- (65B) Timothy Carey (actor) – was modelled and originally included but largely obscured by George Harrison in the final picture
- (68) Mahatma Gandhi – was modelled and originally included to the right of Lewis Carroll, but was subsequently removed.[11][12] According to McCartney, "Gandhi also had to go because the head of EMI, Sir Joe Lockwood, said that in India they wouldn't allow the record to be printed".[6]
- Jesus Christ – was requested by Lennon,[6] but he was not modelled because the LP would be released just over a year after Lennon's controversial statement that the band was "more popular than Jesus".[16]
References
- ^ a b Southall, Brian (27 June 2017). Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band : the album, the Beatles, and the world in 1967 (First U.S. ed.). London. ISBN 9781632892133. OCLC 975176224.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Twemlow, Alice (20 November 2014), "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band cover, UK: Peter Blake and Jann Haworth, 1967", in Lees-Maffei, Grace (ed.), Iconic designs : 50 stories about 50 things, London, pp. 85–87, ISBN 9780857853523, OCLC 860754458
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Leigh 2016.
- ^ a b c Leigh 2016, p. 192.
- ^ a b c Grimes, William (13 September 2009). "Richard Merkin, Painter, Illustrator and Fashion Plate, Dies at 70". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
- ^ a b c Miles, Barry (1998). The Beatles: A Diary. Omnibus Press, London. p. 236. ISBN 978-0-7119-6315-3.
- ^ "The man who created the world's most famous drum-skin". shada.plus.com. Archived from the original on 23 August 2017. Retrieved 27 April 2017.
- ^ a b c d Loder, Kurt (18 June 1987). "The Beatles' 'Sgt. Pepper': It Was Twenty Years Ago Today..." Rolling Stone. Retrieved 15 May 2022.
- ^ Inglis, Ian (2008). "Cover story: magic, myth, and music". In Julien, Olivier (ed.). Sgt. Pepper and the Beatles: It Was Forty Years Ago Today. Ashgate. p. 96. ISBN 978-0-7546-6708-7.
- ^ Chunichi Shimbun. "Beatles' 'Sgt. Pepper' album cover mystery a piece of Japanese history". The Japan Times. Archived from the original on 12 July 2010. Retrieved 24 November 2010.
- ^ a b Sullivan, James (25 March 2007). "Where's Brando?". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 4 January 2018.
- ^ a b Bennett, Greg (31 May 2007). "Shooting Sgt. Pepper". Daily Mirror. London. Retrieved 4 January 2018.
- ^ Harry, Bill (2017). It Was Fifty Years Ago Today! The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper & Beyond. Renoir Pictures. Event occurs at 49.
- ^ a b "Sgt Pepper Cover shoot". Retronaut. Archived from the original on 7 December 2013. Retrieved 19 November 2013.
- ^ a b "Hitler Did Not Make The Final Cut on the Beatles "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band" Album Cover". feelnumb. 24 January 2010. Retrieved 27 April 2017.
- ^ a b Barnes, Anthony (4 February 2007). "Where's Adolf? The mystery of Sgt Pepper is solved". The Independent. London. Retrieved 4 January 2018.
- ^ The Beatles: Get Back (television production). Disney Platform Distribution. 2021. 7 minutes in.
Sources
- Leigh, Spencer (2016). Love Me Do to Love Me Don't. McNidder and Grace Limited. ISBN 978-0857161352. OCLC 958455599.
Further reading
Rosen, Jody (8 June 2007). "Everything You Know About Sgt. Pepper's Is Wrong". Slate.
External links
- Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album at The Beatles' official website
- Interactive cover at the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
- Numbered list with graphical reference
- Interactive cover including missing/airbrushed celebrities and static objects
- Interactive cover (2022) with design, people and object descriptions created for the 55th anniversary of the Sgt. Pepper album in cooperation with cover co-designer Jann Haworth.
- 1967 in art
- 1967 in music
- Lists of 20th-century people
- British music-related lists
- History of the Beatles
- Images of the 20th century
- Lists of celebrities
- 1967 in British music
- Cultural depictions of W. C. Fields
- Cultural depictions of Carl Jung
- Cultural depictions of James Joyce
- Cultural depictions of Laurel & Hardy
- Cultural depictions of T. E. Lawrence
- Cultural depictions of David Livingstone
- Cultural depictions of Karl Marx
- Cultural depictions of Marilyn Monroe
- Cultural depictions of Edgar Allan Poe
- Cultural depictions of George Bernard Shaw
- Cultural depictions of Shirley Temple
- Cultural depictions of Mae West
- Cultural depictions of Oscar Wilde
- Cultural depictions of Bob Dylan
- Cultural depictions of Fred Astaire
- Cultural depictions of Marlon Brando
- Cultural depictions of Johnny Weissmuller
- Cultural depictions of Aleister Crowley
- Cultural depictions of H. G. Wells
- Cultural depictions of Lenny Bruce