The Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’ Collage for Sale
The original collage that was replicated and included in millions of copies of the Beatles' 1967 classic 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' is for sale. London's Sotheby's auction house will auction off the Peter Blake work on Nov. 13.
The piece is being sold as part of the collection of British architect Colin St. John Wilson, who passed away in 2007. Wilson's widow, Mary Jane Long, received the collage as a gift from Blake in 1968.
Blake, who also designed the album's oft-copied cover, created the Sgt. Pepper character as, in the words of James Rawlin of Sotheby's, a "mustachioed military gent" of a bygone era, even if nowadays he looks like he belongs in an indie band from Brooklyn.
The artwork helped sell the concept of the album by putting a face to the fictional character of Sgt. Pepper. At the time the group were looking to escape the notion of them as being "lovable moptops" and felt that creating personas would help them break free from their image.
"If you want to cut out those shapes you could almost become Sgt Pepper yourself, with the cutout mustache and the stripes and the badges," said Rawlin.
The collage is expected to sell somewhere between £50,000 (approximately $80,000) and £80,000 ($130,000).