Monday, January 19, 2009

Apple of My Eye










A post of lovely John images for your viewing pleasure...

The first photo is a personal scan of the September 1968 issue of Eye magazine. I had wanted this magazine for a long time, and I finally obtained a copy, buried amongst a large lot of Beatles clippings. It isn't in the best shape, but it's better than nothing. There are some other good pictures of both John and Paul accompanying the article inside. I do believe that Linda McCartney took that cover photograph; it is very similar to the one of John in the Wingspan book.

The other photos of John in the basement flat he and Yoko were sharing appeared two months later in the November 23, 1968, issue of Rolling Stone. These shots were taken by Ethan Russell (who later photographed the Get Back sessions) to accompany a thoughtful interview conducted by Jonathan Cott. Cott gives Lennon the opportunity to discuss the creation of some of the Beatles' most revered songs, as well as his political views. He prefaces the interview with a summation of Lennon's mood:
Any suspicions that John would be ornery, mean, cruel, or brutish - feelings attributed to him and imagined by press reports and various paranoiac personalities - never arose even for the purpose of being pressed down.
When reflecting on his impression of Lennon, Cott quotes Gasset: "Were art to redeem man, it could do so only by saving him from the seriousness of life and restoring him to an unexpected boyishness."

12 comments:

WendyB said...

Never seen this before! Thanks for posting.

Anonymous said...

Thank you very much for sharing these, I had never seen them before. : )

Love,
Jennifer

Anonymous said...

wow very rare! could you post the pics with Paul? Thanks in advance!! :-)

Tim said...

Many more of these Ethan Russell photos can be seen on his website:
http://www.ethanrussell.com/collections/Home-Lennon/collection_lennon_home.html

Great one from this session with John and a vast array of 45s. Someone should buy a print and a magnifying glass to find out what those records are.

Tim said...

This one, actually:
http://www.ethanrussell.com/collections/lennon01/gallery/album1/large/04.jpg

To get all the Fab related photos in decent res jpeg form for all your desktop wallpapering needs, go here:
http://www.ethanrussell.com/collections/lennon01/gallery/album1/large/

http://www.ethanrussell.com/collections/lennon02/gallery/album1/large/

http://www.ethanrussell.com/collections/Home-Lennon/

http://www.ethanrussell.com/collections/beatles-01/gallery/album1/large/

Hackety hack hack.

changemyworld said...

Wonderful photos, thank you so much for posting them :)

child of nature said...

Thanks, everyone, for your comments.

Thank you for the links, Tim! I am in love with the one of John, Yoko and Pepper, the black cat.

Tim said...

Anytime.

I am also looking for the Russell photo from the same photo session that I drew all those years ago, with John resting his head on Yoko with her smiling, all the hair, etc etc.

http://bagism.com/img/fanartwork/exhibit10/tswaddling2.jpg

Ever come across the original of that in your photo travels? I know it was in some book that I borrowed (which was where I drew it from), but I'm not sure which one. I haven't seen it since though.

Mind if I plug this blog back at Bagism, btw?

Anonymous said...

Hi there, great as always. Can u post more scans? What about the Paul Mccartney pics you mentioned?
Thanks!!!

child of nature said...

I have updated with a new entry containing additional scans of photos from the Eye article.

Tim: I do have that photo of John and Yoko, but I'll have to do some digging through the archives. Thanks for sending along those Cathy Sarver pics. You can promote the blog at Bagism if you wish.

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Kwai Chang said...

It sure seems like this is the session that produced John's immortal 'white album' picture. Also, on the third picture, the original(?) line-drawing artwork of 'Two Virgins' (which was featured on the 'white album' poster) is hanging on the wall above John's head. The picture to the right of that, I think is of Kyoko (Yoko's daughter). The last picture, reveals John to be the owner of the original Sgt. Pepper drum skin. There were two different designs by The Fool. Paul got the 'unused' one. It all leads me to believe the photos were taken in John's office...but, where was that?