Stuart Sutcliffe
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Stuart Fergusson Victor Sutcliffe (June 23, 1940 – April 10, 1962) was an artist who, until his sudden death, worked in a style related to Abstract Expressionism. He was a member of The Beatles for two years, and is often credited for naming the band (after Buddy Holly's band The Crickets). He is sometimes referred to as "the fifth Beatle". He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and brought up in Huyton, Merseyside. He attended Prescot Grammar School, and was himself a schoolteacher's son.
Image:Sutcliffeselfportrait.jpg
While Sutcliffe was a gifted painter who showed great promise, and had 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 John Lennon, whom he met while studying at the Liverpool College of Art. Lennon convinced him to buy a bass guitar (choosing a Hofner 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 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. Pete Best has expressed similar views. [1] Nevertheless, Sutcliffe's importance to the group came from his artistic rather than musical talent. He was the first in the group to have a "mop-top" haircut, and his sense of style, influenced by his (and later John Lennon's) lover Astrid Kirchherr, contributed to the Beatles' early "look."
He left the Beatles to pursue his career as an artist before they achieved their success, and 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. It has been claimed that this 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.
Stuart's sister, Pauline Sutcliffe, has always claimed John Lennon was the cause of Stuart's death, based on a fight they had had in Hamburg earlier. According to her account, Lennon had repeatedly kicked Stuart in the head, who never recovered from the injuries. (Her claims are echoed in Albert Goldman's book The Lives of John Lennon.) However, this appears to be unsupported. Astrid Kirchherr denies that any such incident occurred, no action was ever taken against Lennon, and when he asked Sutcliffe's mother for Stuart's old scarf he'd worn at art school, it was given to him as a memento.
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 more 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.
Sutcliffe's role in the Beatles' early career, as well as the factors that led him to leave the group, is dramatised in the movie Backbeat, in which he was portrayed by Stephen Dorff. He was also portrayed by David Wilkinson in the film Birth of the Beatles.
See also
External links
- Stuart Sutcliffe and the Beatles exhibition at the Museum of Liverpool Life
- Describes Pauline Sutcliffe's claims
| The Beatles |
|---|
| John Lennon | Paul McCartney | George Harrison | Ringo Starr Pete Best | Stuart Sutcliffe |
| Management |
| Brian Epstein | Allen Klein | Apple Records |
| Production |
| George Martin | Geoff Emerick | Norman Smith | Abbey Road Studios |
| Official Studio Albums |
| Please Please Me (1963) | With the Beatles (1963) | A Hard Day's Night (1964) | Beatles for Sale (1964) | Help! (1965) | Rubber Soul (1965) Revolver (1966) | Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) | Magical Mystery Tour (1967) | The Beatles (1968) | Yellow Submarine (1969) | Abbey Road (1969) | Let It Be (1970) |
| Films |
| A Hard Day's Night (1964) | Help! (1965) | Magical Mystery Tour (1967) | Yellow Submarine (1968) | Let it Be (1970) |
| Related Articles |
| History | Discography | Bootlegs | Long-term influence | Beatlemania | Beatlesque | Fifth Beatle | Paul Is Dead | British Invasion | Yoko Ono | 1960s | Apple Corps |
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