A set of pop art drawings by John Lennon has gone on display in Liverpool, linked to a promotional film for The Beatles' I Feel Fine. Ten pieces are now being exhibited after being rediscovered at auction.
A rare collection of hand-drawn animation cells from the Beatles' music video for 'I Feel Fine' is currently on display at the Liverpool Beatles Museum. The artwork, created over 60 years ago, offers an intimate look at an experimental project that helped define a new era of music storytelling.
The genesis of the project was as spontaneous as it was creative. The drawings were produced by John Lennon and filmmaker Stephen Verona, who initially met in London. According to Verona, the idea for the project emerged while they were working together on a commercial. The duo began sketching and eventually decided to transform their drawings into a two-minute animated short.
The resulting film was a meticulous production consisting of 240 individual drawings. Each word of the song was represented on its own piece of paper, and the completed artwork was assembled to align with the rhythm and lyrics of the music.
Collector Joseph O’Donnell, who helped bring the pieces to the museum, explained that at the time the drawings were created, they were not initially intended for a music video. Lennon had given the drawings to Verona on an unlabeled acetate disc, and Verona was under the impression the project was titled 'She Said So.' It was only years later that the pair reunited to finish the work, creating the final product while gathered around a kitchen table.
In 2000, the complete set of 240 stop-motion drawings was sold at a Christie's auction and dispersed among individual collectors. Through persistence, O’Donnell was able to track down and reunite several of the pieces, making the current exhibition at the Liverpool Beatles Museum the first time these specific drawings have been displayed together since they were separated.
Roag Best of the Liverpool Beatles Museum noted that O’Donnell discovered the drawings at an auction in Tynen, where their true significance remained largely unrecognized. Best highlighted the rarity of the collection, emphasizing that it serves as a testament to Lennon's creative life beyond the recording studio.
"The significance of them is one, that they were done by John, and two, that they were done for that 'I Feel Fine' video," Best said. "It was rock and roll's first music video. If you look at that in today's times, you don't get an artist or group that doesn't release a video to promote their music."
