I Feel Fine …art! Incredible painting by all four Beatles titled ‘Images of Woman’ created while they were bored between concerts in Toyko’s Hilton during 1966 World Tour is set to go under the hammer for $600,000

A large colorful painting created by all four members of The Beatles in a Japanese hotel room is going on sale for $600,000.

The painting, titled ‘Images of a Woman’, will go under the hammer on February 1 at auction house Christie’s New York, which says it is the only ‘major work of art’ signed by all members of the Fab Four.

John, Paul, George and Ringo were in the middle of their 1966 world tour, playing five shows in just three days at the famous Nippon Budokan arena.

When they were not performing on the June 29 to July 3 tour, they were in Room 1005, the Presidential Suite, of the Tokyo Hilton.

The band members were harassed in public, so their security staff decided that they would have to stay at the hotel if they were not performing.

John Lennon and Paul McCartney spend the hours between shows painting at the Tokyo Hilton during the Beatles’ Asian tour, June 28, 1966

“They were taken in and out of their hotel through the service entrances and exits,” said Mark Lewisohn, an English historian, biographer and authority on the Beatles.

‘Apart from the fact that their cars were speeding through the streets and people could wave at them from a distance, no one really came into contact with them. Even in the arena the audience was kept far from the stage.’

“Going to Japan was an eye-opener for The Beatles, they just didn’t see much of it,” he added.

There were reports of Japanese nationalists threatening band members, including some enraged by a Western rock band playing at a venue considered a spiritual home for martial arts.

To ease the boredom of staying indoors, a guest brought a high-quality set of art materials, including watercolors, oil paints and brushes, which inspired them to get started.

They placed four chairs around the table and each member worked from their corner toward the center, with a lamp in the center.

Alternating between ‘cigarettes’ and brushstrokes, the band created the artwork with recordings from the soon-to-be-released Revolver album in the background.

The completed 21 inch by 31 inch acrylic and watercolor artwork was a mishmash of patterns, circles and squiggles on Japanese art paper.

Each band member signed the portion of the painting they created in a circle where the lamp once stood.

Photographer Robert Whitaker, who stayed with the Beatles, later recalled, “They stopped painting, went to do a concert, and then it was, ‘Let’s get back to the picture!’

‘I have never seen them calmer or more contented than at this moment.

‘They never discussed what they painted. It evolved naturally.”

The members of Beatles pose for photos upon arrival at Tokyo International Airport on June 29, 1966 in Tokyo, Japan

The Beatles at a press conference in Tokyo in June 1966. When not performing, they were in the presidential suite of the Tokyo Hilton

This photo, taken on June 30, 1966, shows British band The Beatles, (from left to right) Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison and John Lennon, performing at their concert at the Budokan in Tokyo

Although the contributions seem decidedly abstract, the work was given its current name in the late 1980s after a Japanese journalist believed that he could see female genitals in McCartney’s quadrant, according to Christie’s.

While Lennon and McCartney favored black paint for their sections, Harrison and Starr relied heavily on watercolor, uniting the quadrants with a punchy vermilion background to intensify the overall graphic effect.

Harrison’s section, which uses darker and more aggressive brushstrokes, seems to stand out the most, while Starr’s section is cartoonish and takes up less space.

When the work was complete, The Beatles removed the table lamp and signed an area of ​​the remaining large white circle next to their art.

The band gave the painting away to the Official Beatles Fan Club in Japan.

The original owner owned it for over 50 years before it was sold to a private collector at auction in New York in 2012.

Casey Rogers, head of sales at Christie’s New York, said: ‘It is a beautiful work of art and a powerful piece of Beatles memorabilia.’

Although the band members are revered for their musical genius, they all also possessed a talent for the visual arts.

‘Every Beatles liked to draw, and there are many examples of that. Often they would add signatures to a drawing,” Lewisohn noted.

Lennon attended art school for three years and famously published two books of idiosyncratic writing and clever caricatures.

‘Paul was always a very talented and inventive artist, who was easily able to achieve an Art A level at the end of his two years of schooling. He only failed because he went on The Beatles’ first tour,” he says. Lewisohn.

The historian said Harrison and Starr also drew “often and with great talent.”

He added: ‘George treasured a school book which showed that while he should have been paying attention to teachers, he filled page after page with elaborate sketches of guitars.’