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STUART SUTCLIFFE ESTATE

OFFICIAL STUART SUTCLIFFE COLLECTIONS

 

     The Stuart Sutcliffe Estate is pleased to announce the launching of the official Stuart Sutcliffe e-commerce Shop. ShopStuartCollection.com offers never-before available Original Stuart Art Wear and Merchandise Collections.

     Each collection captures a snapshot of the significance of Stuart’s imprint; the passion and relentless commitment he had to being a painter; the pop music iconic influence he had on Lennon’s band, the Beatles; and the character that emulates from un-compromised dedication to stretching beyond norms and reaching higher.

     We want people everywhere to dream. To be encouraged. To know we can aspire to reach new heights – to become more than we ever imagined we could ever be.

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STUART FERGUSSON VICTOR SUTCLIFFE

 

 "HOW DO YOU TALK ABOUT AN ARTIST WHO DIED JUST AS HE WAS GETTING READY". ~ Richard Prince.

     Stuart Sutcliffe was born in Edinburgh on the 23rd of June 1940, and was raised there until the age of 3- thereafter in England. His father was an engineer officer in the Merchant Navy; his mother was a school teacher. His art career began early on when he created works of art for his Mother's classroom. He attended Prescott Grammar School, and was accepted at age 16 to attend the Liverpool Regional College of Art.

     There in 1957, he met fellow art student and musician, John Lennon. He was persuaded by John to buy a bass guitar after the sale of one of his paintings to John Moores - the patron of the Bi-Annual Exhibitions held at the Walker Art Gallery, where the work had been exhibited.

     Sutcliffe joined Lennon's band as the "4th" member and changed the name from the Quarrymen to the Beatals. Lennon, always having the last word, changed the spelling to the Beatles. Later Pete Best was recruited just prior to their first Hamburg trip, becoming the "5th Beatle".

     From April 1961 to March 1962 he was awarded a scholarship at the chief Hamburg Art School, under Eduardo Paolozzi, who was doing a year as a visiting professor and who is considered one of the fathers of Pop Art. He took a keen interest in Sutcliffe and recalled:

"He had so much energy and was so very inventive. The feeling of potential just splashed out from him. He had the right kind of sensibility and arrogance to succeed." Later he wrote, " My report is that Sutcliffe is very gifted and very intelligent. In the meantime he has become one of my best students."

     Stuart fell in love with photographer Astrid Kirchherr and chose to leave the Beatles and devote himself to his work as an artist / painter and continue his studies at the Hamburg State School of Art. In an essay on the artist, Donald Kuspit, noted art critic and Professor of Art and Philosophy at New York University, SUNY said:

"...Stuart Sutcliffe emerged as an Abstract Expressionist painter just when Abstract Expressionism was in decline, but his works return to its origins, epitomizing all that is best in it ... A certain structure is latent in the apparent chaos of Sutcliffe's handling; it is a metaphor for the structured, disciplined self - and he must have had enormous discipline and concentration to produce what he did in such a short amount of time - that Sutcliffe was in the process of realizing when he died."   " He (Stuart) was an outstanding loss to Liverpool and to English painting, and over and above the merit of his pictures he has a special significance as somebody whose burning creativity switched from art into pop music and then back again. He showed the way. " John Willett

He was an artist, poet and writer first - and a musician second.

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STUART SUTCLIFFE - THE LOST BEATLE,

A BBC DOCUMENTARY

     Stuart Sutcliffe: The Lost Beatle explores the mystique surrounding the Beatles' original bassist, who left the band to follow a different muse and died from a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 22. Told via interviews with an impressive array of Sutcliffe's family and friends--and through uniquely descriptive quotes from his letters--this hour-long documentary reveals a lot of intimate detail about Sutcliffe's transition from promising art-school student in Liverpool (and best friend of John Lennon) to reluctant musician (pressed into service by Lennon) to determined painter within the German avant-garde scene.

     A lot of Stu's story, as Beatles fans know, is set in Hamburg, during and after the days the group was a house band in the city's red-light district. Familiar tales of friction between Sutcliffe and Paul McCartney abound. But these are offset by a tremendous amount of fresh insight and detail offered by such important Beatles-saga figures as rocker Tony Sheridan, Klaus Voormann and--most crucially--Astrid Kirchherr, the photographer who influenced the Beatles' look and who became Sutcliffe's lover until his death.

     On the downside, The Lost Beatle never mentions the severe head trauma Sutcliffe experienced following a beating by Teddy Boys in Liverpool (an incident that probably led to his death and which has been documented in detail, as recently as Bob Spitz's 2005 book The Beatles: The Biography). Instead, the film tacitly endorses (based on unsubstantiated hearsay from Sutcliffe's sister) an old allegation--dismissed by Kirchherr--that a beating Stu supposedly took from Lennon in Hamburg was, ultimately, the cause of his death. --Tom Keogh

     At art college in Liverpool in 1959, Stuart Sutcliffe met John Lennon and they soon became close -with Lennon persuading Sutcliffe to use the proceeds of a painting he had sold to buy a bass guitar and join his band, along with Paul McCartney and George Harrison. Before long, with drummer Pete Best in the line-up, they won a contract in Hamburg playing sleazy clubs in the seedy Reeperbahn area of the city, amidst the casual sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll of the era.

     The newly-christened Beatles were on their way. With the band on the brink of success, Sutcliffe left the group to concentrate on his first love, art, and his new love, German photographer Astrid Kirchherr. But Stuart's health soon began to decline. On the 10th of April 1962, Stuart suffered a seizure and slipped into a coma. As Astrid cradled his head in her hands, Stuart died of a cerebral hemorrhage, cutting short the life of the promising young artist.

     Interviewees include Stuart's fiance and Beatles stylist/photographer Astrid Kirchherr, early Beatles manager Allan Williams, Stuart's sister Pauline Sutcliffe, Liverpool flatmate to Sutcliffe and Lennon, Rod Murray and esteemed American art historian and writer Donald Kuspit.

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