Stuart Sutcliffe To Receive Art Exhibition

Stuart Sutcliffe, the late artist and early bassist for the Beatles, will receive an art showcase from Harper’s Books in East Hampton, New York on August 10th (running until October 14th). The exhibition, titled “Stuart Sutcliffe: Yea Yea Yea” and curated by artist Richard Prince, will feature 21 of Sutcliffe’s paintings and paper-based works.

According to the Harper’s website, the exhibition “seeks to recontextualize (Sutcliffe’s) oeuvre within the paradigm of the contemporary art world, highlighting the enduring significance of his work for both late Modernist art history and present-day artistic practices.” The selected art will emphasize “the collaged geometricism of his works on paper and the dense gestural abstraction of his paintings.”

Prince also authored an essay on Sutcliffe, which will be included in a limited edition booklet also published by Harper’s. Of the 500 total copies, 50 will be signed by Prince and Sutcliffe’s sister, Pauline.

Sutcliffe played as a bassist with the Beatles between 1957 and 1960 after meeting John Lennon as a student at the Liverpool College of Art. Never a gifted technical musician, Sutcliffe quit the band after their legendary tenure in Hamburg, Germany. He dedicated the rest of his short life to his artwork before dying of an unexpected brain hemmorage in 1962.