Stuart Sutcliffe
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Stuart Fergusson Victor Sutcliffe (23 June 1940 – 10 April 1962) was a British artist who, until his sudden death, worked in a style related to Abstract Expressionism. An art school friend of John Lennon's, he was the original bassist of The Beatles for two years, and is often credited for naming the band (after Buddy Holly's band The Crickets). Along with former drummer Pete Best, he can accurately be called one of only six true members of the Beatles. Sutcliffe is often referred to as "the fifth Beatle".
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[edit] Biography
He was born at Simpson Memorial Maternity Pavilion Hospital, Edinburgh, Lothian, and brought up in Huyton, Merseyside. He attended Prescot Grammar School and was himself a schoolteacher's son.
While Sutcliffe was a gifted painter who showed great promise, with personal charisma and looks comparable with James Dean's, his musical skills were not remarkable. Sutcliffe became a Beatle mostly because of his friendship with Lennon, whom he met while studying at the Liverpool College of Art. Lennon convinced him to buy a bass guitar (choosing a Höfner President) with the money he had made from the sale of one of his paintings. He was very uncomfortable on stage and usually played with his back to the audience. His musical style was elementary, mostly sticking to root notes of musical chords. (An example of Sutcliffe's bass playing with the early Beatles is the track "Cayenne", on the Anthology 1 album.)
Regarding Sutcliffe's musical talent, it should be noted that Bill Harry, founder and editor of the Mersey Beat newspaper, contended in a recent interview that Sutcliffe was a competent, if not brilliant, bassist, and that accounts of his musical ineptitude were exaggerated. Original Beatles drummer Pete Best has expressed similar views. [1] Nevertheless, Sutcliffe's importance to the group came from his artistic rather than musical talent. His sense of style, influenced by his lover, Astrid Kirchherr, contributed to The Beatles' early "look." He also had a profound influence on his close friend Lennon, reinforcing the rebellious Lennon's aspiration to art and the bohemian lifestyle, which were on display during the Beatles' psychedelic period (1966-1968) and Lennon's solo Avant-garde work with Yoko Ono.
[edit] Death
Sutcliffe left The Beatles to pursue his career as an artist before they achieved their success, and to marry Kirchherr. Paul McCartney, previously second lead guitarist in the group, replaced Sutcliffe on bass. Months afterwards, in the spring of 1962, Sutcliffe died from a cerebral hemorrhage; after collapsing in the middle of an art class, he was taken to a hospital, but died in the ambulance. It has been claimed that his death was the result of a beating sustained in Liverpool while still a member of the group, but it is more likely to have been a hereditary condition.
Lennon later said that he was profoundly affected by his friend's death. Sutcliffe's sister, Pauline, has always claimed that Lennon was the cause of her brother's death, asserting that the two had fought in Hamburg, Germany a short while earlier. According to her account, Lennon had repeatedly kicked Sutcliffe in the head and Sutcliffe never recovered from the injuries. (Her claims are echoed in Albert Goldman's controversial 1988 book The Lives of John Lennon.) In 2001, she claimed that late in Lennon's life, he himself had admitted this attack and felt guilt over the possible role it played in Sutcliffe's death. However, beyond Pauline, there is little corroboration. Kirchherr denies that any such incident occurred and no action was ever taken against Lennon.
The Beatles paid homage to Sutcliffe by including his portrait among those on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967 (he appears at the extreme left, next to fellow-artist Aubrey Beardsley), and much later, on the cover of Beatles Anthology Volume 1.
[edit] Art
As an artist, Sutcliffe displayed considerable talent from an early age. His few surviving works show the influence of the British and European abstract artists contemporary with the Abstract Expressionist movement in the United States. His earlier figurative work is reminiscent of the kitchen sink school, particularly John Bratby. His later gestural abstractions were influenced by his art tutor in Hamburg, Eduardo Paolozzi. They also bear comparison with the work of John Hoyland and Nicolas de Staël, though they are more lyrical. Some of his works may be found in Liverpool galleries today.
[edit] Film Portrayals
Sutcliffe's role in The Beatles' early career, as well as the factors that led him to leave the group, is dramatised in the film Backbeat, in which he was portrayed by Stephen Dorff. He was also portrayed by David Wilkinson in the film Birth of the Beatles.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Stuart Sutcliffe and The Beatles exhibition at the Museum of Liverpool Life
- Describes Pauline Sutcliffe's claims
