Astrid Kirchherr
Encyclopedia
Astrid Kirchherr is a German
photographer and artist
and is well known for her association with The Beatles
(along with her friends Klaus Voormann
and Jürgen Vollmer
) and her photographs of The Beatles during their Hamburg days.
Kirchherr met artist Stuart Sutcliffe
in the Kaiserkeller bar in Hamburg
in 1960, where he was playing bass with The Beatles, and was later engaged to him before his death in 1962.
Although Kirchherr has taken very few photographs since 1967, her early work has been exhibited in Hamburg, Bremen
, London
, Liverpool
, New York City
, Washington, D.C.
, Tokyo
, Vienna
, and at the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. Kirchherr has published three limited-edition books of photographs.
, Germany
, and is the daughter of a former executive
of the German branch of the Ford Motor Company
. During World War II
she was evacuated to the safety of the Baltic Sea
where she remembered seeing dead bodies on the shore (after the ships Cap Arcona and the SS Deutschland
had been bombed and sunk) and the destruction in Hamburg when she returned.
After her graduation
Kirchherr enrolled in the Meisterschule für Mode, Textil, Graphik und Werbung in Hamburg, as she wanted to study fashion design
but demonstrated a talent for black-and-white photography. Reinhard Wolf, the school's main photographic tutor, convinced her to switch courses and promised that he would hire her as his assistant when she graduated. Kirchherr worked for Wolf as his assistant from 1959 until 1963.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s Kirchherr and her art school friends were involved in the European existentialist movement whose followers were later nicknamed "Exis" by John Lennon
. In 1995 she told BBC Radio Merseyside
: "Our philosophy
then, because we were only little kids, was wearing black clothes and going around looking moody. Of course, we had a clue who Jean Paul Sartre was. We got inspired by all the French artists and writers, because that was the closest we could get. England was so far away, and America
was out of the question. So France
was the nearest. So we got all the information from France, and we tried to dress like the French existentialists. ... We wanted to be free, we wanted to be different, and tried to be cool
, as we call it now."
(in the St.Pauli district of Hamburg) and heard music coming from the Kaiserkeller
club. Voormann walked in and watched a performance by a group called The Beatles. Voormann asked Kirchherr and Vollmer to listen to this new music, and after being persuaded to visit the Kaiserkeller (which was in the rough area of the Reeperbahn) Kirchherr decided that all she wanted to do was to be as close to The Beatles as she could. The trio of friends had never heard this new music called Rock n' Roll before, having previously only listened to Trad jazz
, with some Nat King Cole
and The Platters
mixed in. The trio then visited the Kaiserkeller almost every night, arriving at 9 o'clock and sitting by the front of the stage. Kirchherr later said: "It was like a merry-go-round in my head, they looked absolutely astonishing... My whole life changed in a couple of minutes. All I wanted was to be with them and to know them."
Kirchherr later said that she, Voormann, and Vollmer felt guilty about being German, and about Germany's recent history. Meeting The Beatles was something very special for her, although she knew that English people would think that she ate sauerkraut
, and would comment on her heavy German accent, but they made jokes about it together. Lennon would make sarcastic remarks from the stage, saying "You Krauts
, we won the war," knowing that very few Germans in the audience spoke English, but any English sailors present would roar with laughter.
Sutcliffe was fascinated by the trio, but especially Kirchherr, and thought they looked like "real bohemian
s". Bill Harry
later said that when Kirchherr walked in, every head would immediately turn her way, and that she always captivated the whole room. Sutcliffe wrote to a friend that he could hardly take his eyes off her, and had tried to talk to Kirchherr during the next break, but she had already left the club.
Sutcliffe managed to meet them eventually, and learned that all three had attended the Meisterschule, which was the same type of art college that Lennon and Sutcliffe had attended in Liverpool. (Note: Meisterschule für Mode, Textil, Grafik und Werbung [Master Craftspeople College
for Fashion, Textile, Graphics, and Advertising], although it is now called the University of Applied Sciences). Kirchherr asked The Beatles if they would mind letting her take photographs of them in a photo session, which impressed them, as other groups only had snapshots
that were taken by friends. The next morning Kirchherr took photographs (with a Rolleicord
camera) at a fairground
in a municipal park called "der Dom" (Cathedral) which was close to the Reeperbahn, and in the afternoon she took them all (minus Best who decided not to go) to her mother's house in Altona. Kirchherr's bedroom (which was all in black, including the furniture, with silver foil on the walls and a large tree branch suspended from the ceiling) was decorated especially for Voormann, whom she had a relationship with, although after the visits to the Kaiserkeller their relationship became purely platonic. Kirchherr started dating Sutcliffe, although she always remained close friends with Voormann.
Kirchherr later supplied Sutcliffe and the other Beatles with Preludin, which, when taken with beer, made them feel euphoric and helped to keep them awake until the early hours of the morning. The Beatles had taken Preludin before, but it was only possible at that time to get Preludin with a doctor's prescription
note, so Kirchherr's mother got them from a local chemist, who supplied them without asking questions. After meeting Kirchherr, Lennon filled his letters to Cynthia Powell
(his girlfriend at the time) with "Astrid said this, Astrid did that", which made Powell jealous, until she read that Sutcliffe was in a relationship with Kirchherr. When Powell visited Hamburg with Dot Rhone (Paul McCartney
's girlfriend at the time) in April 1961, they stayed at Kirchherr's house. In August 1963, Kirchherr met Lennon and Cynthia in Paris while they both there for a belated honeymoon
, as Kirchherr was there with a girlfriend for a few days holiday. The four of them went from wine bar to wine bar, and finally ended up back at Kirchherr's lodgings, where all four fell asleep on Kirchherr's single bed.
The Beatles met Kirchherr again in Hamburg in 1966 when they were touring Germany, and Kirchherr gave Lennon the letters he'd written to Sutcliffe in 1961 and 1962. Lennon said it was 'the best present I've had in years'. All of The Beatles wrote many letters to Kirchherr: "I only have a couple from George, which I'll never show anyone, but he wrote so many. So did the others. I probably threw them away. You do that when you're young-you don't think of the future." Harrison later asked Kirchherr to arrange the cover of his Wonderwall Music
album in 1968.
out of his hair and asking me to cut his hair for him. Pete Best
(The Beatles' original drummer) has really curly hair and it wouldn't work." Kirchherr says that after she cut Sutcliffe's hair, Harrison asked her to do the same when she was visiting Liverpool, and Lennon and McCartney had their hair cut in the same style while they were in Paris, by Kirchherr's friend, Vollmer, who was living there at the time as an assistant to photographer William Klein
.
After moving into the Kirchherr family's house, Sutcliffe used to borrow her clothes, as he was the same height as Kirchherr. He wore her leather pants and jackets, collarless jackets, over-sized shirts, and long scarves. He also borrowed a corduroy
suit with no lapels that he wore on stage, which prompted Lennon to sarcastically ask if his mother had lent him the suit.
wrote to friends that he was infatuated with Kirchherr, and asked her friends which colours, films, books and painters she liked, and who she fancied. Best commented that the beginning of their relationship was, "like one of those fairy stories". Kirchherr says that she immediately fell in love with Sutcliffe, and still calls him "the love of my life". Kirchherr and Sutcliffe got engaged in November 1960, and exchanged rings, as is the German custom. Sutcliffe later wrote to his parents that he was engaged to Kirchherr, which they were shocked to learn, as they thought he would give up his career as an artist, although he told Kirchherr that he would like to be an art teacher in London or Germany in the future. Sutcliffe later borrowed money from Kirchherr for the airfare to fly back to Liverpool in February 1961, returning to Hamburg in March.
Kirchherr and Sutcliffe went to Liverpool in the summer of 1961, as Kirchherr wanted to meet Sutcliffe's family (and to see Liverpool) before their marriage. Everybody was expecting a strange beatnik
artist from Hamburg, but Kirchherr turned up at the Sutcliffe's house at 37 Aigburth
Drive, Liverpool, bearing a single long-stemmed orchid in her hand as a present, and dressed in a round-necked cashmere
sweater and tailored skirt. In 1962, Sutcliffe collapsed in the middle of an art class in Hamburg. He was suffering from intense headaches, and Kirchherr's mother had German doctors perform various checks on him, although they were unable to determine exactly what was causing the headaches. While living at the Kirchherrs' house in Hamburg his condition got worse. On 10 April 1962, Kirchherr's mother phoned her daughter at work and told her Sutcliffe was not feeling well, had been brought back to the house, and an ambulance had been called for. Kirchherr rushed home and rode with Sutcliffe in the ambulance, but he died in her arms before it reached the hospital.
Three days later Kirchherr met Lennon, McCartney and Best at the Hamburg airport (they were returning to Hamburg to perform) and told them Sutcliffe had died of a brain haemorrhage. Harrison and manager Brian Epstein
arrived on another plane sometime later with Sutcliffe's mother, who had been informed by telegram. Harrison and Lennon were helpful towards the distraught Kirchherr, with Lennon telling her one day that she definitely had to decide if she wanted to "Live or die, there is no other question."
", as an assignment for the German Stern
magazine. Epstein had forbidden any publicity photographs to be taken without his permission, but Kirchherr phoned Harrison, who said he would arrange it, but added, "Only if they pay you."
Stern phoned Bill Harry
at his Mersey Beat
newspaper and asked if he could arrange a photograph of all the groups in Liverpool, so Harry suggested Kirchherr be the photographer, although Kirchherr later said she placed an advertisement in the Liverpool Echo newspaper. Kirchherr and Scheler said that any group who wanted their photograph taken in front of St. George's Hall
would be paid £1 per musician, but over 200 groups turned up on the day, which meant Kirchherr and Scheler soon ran out of money. Kirchherr didn't publish the photographs until 1995, in a book called Liverpool Days, which is a limited edition collection of black-and-white photographs. In 1999, a companion book called Hamburg Days was published (a two-volume limited edition) containing a set of photographs by Kirchherr and "memory drawings" by Voormann. The drawings are recollections of places and situations that Voormann clearly remembers, but Kirchherr had never photographed, or had lost the photographs.
Kirchherr described how difficult it was to be accepted as a female photographer in the 1960s: "Every magazine and newspaper wanted me to photograph The Beatles again. Or they wanted my old stuff, even if it was out of focus, whether they were nice or not. They wouldn't look at my other work. It was very hard for a girl photographer in the 60s to be accepted. In the end I gave up. I've hardly taken a photo since 1967." Kirchherr was quoted as saying that When We Was Fab (Genesis Publications
2007) would be her last book of photographs: "I have decided it is time to create one book in which I am totally involved so that it contains the pictures I like most, printed the way I would print them, even down to the text and design.... This book is me and that is why it will be the last one. The very last one."
Kirchherr has expressed respect for other photographers, such as Annie Leibovitz
(because of the humour in her work), Irving Penn
, Richard Avedon
, Jim Rakete and Reinhard Wolf (German Wikipedia) and French film-makers François Truffaut
, and Jean Cocteau
. Kirchherr said that her favourite photos are the ones she took of Sutcliffe by the Baltic sea, and of Lennon and George Harrison in her attic room at 45a Eimsbütteler Strasse. She has expressed reservations about digital photography, saying that a photographer should concentrate on the art of photography and not on the technical results, although admitting that she knows nothing about computers, and is "afraid of the internet".
Kirchherr admits that she is not good at business as she is not organised enough, and has never really looked after the negatives of her photographs to prove ownership. Her business partner Ulf Krüger—a songwriter and record producer—successfully found many of Astrid's negatives and photographs and had them copyrighted, although he believes that Kirchherr has lost £500,000 over the years because of people using her photographs without permission. In July 2001 Kirchherr visited Liverpool to open an exhibition of her work at the Mathew Street
art gallery, which is close to the former site of The Cavern Club
. She appeared as a guest at the city's Beatles Week Festival during the August Bank Holiday. Kirchherr's work has been exhibited internationally in places, such as Hamburg, Bremen, London, Liverpool, New York City, Washington, D.C., Tokyo, Vienna, and at the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.
in Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. The marriage ended in divorce after seven years. She worked as a barmaid, an interior designer, and then worked for a music publishing firm, getting married for a second time to a German businessman.
Kirchherr worked as an advisor, in 1994, on the film Backbeat
, which portrayed Kirchherr, Sutcliffe and The Beatles during their early days in Hamburg. She was impressed with Stephen Dorff
(who played Sutcliffe in the film) commenting that he was the right age (19-years-old at the time)
and his gestures, the way he smoked, and talked were so like Sutcliffe's that she had goose pimples. Kirchherr was portrayed in the film by actress Sheryl Lee
.
Since the mid-1990s Kirchherr and business partner Krüger have operated the K&K photography shop in Hamburg, offering custom vintage prints, books and artwork for sale. K&K periodically helps arrange Beatles' conventions and other Beatles' events in the Hamburg area. She has no children, and now lives alone: ""My [second] marriage ended in 1985... I regretted I had no children. I just couldn't see me have [sic] any. But now I am pleased when I see the situation the world is in. I live alone and am very happy."
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
photographer and artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
and is well known for her association with The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
(along with her friends Klaus Voormann
Klaus Voormann
Klaus Voormann is a German Grammy Award-winning artist, noted musician, and record producer. He designed artwork for many bands including The Beatles, The Bee Gees, Wet Wet Wet and Turbonegro. His most notable work as a producer was his work with the band Trio, including their worldwide hit "Da Da...
and Jürgen Vollmer
Jürgen Vollmer
Jürgen Vollmer, with Astrid Kirchherr and Klaus Voorman , befriended The Beatles during the band's time in Hamburg in the early 1960s. Vollmer was the son of a professional army officer who died during World War II. Young Vollmer was attending Hamburg's Institute of Fashion at the time he met The...
) and her photographs of The Beatles during their Hamburg days.
Kirchherr met artist Stuart Sutcliffe
Stuart Sutcliffe
Stuart Fergusson Victor Sutcliffe was a Scottish artist and musician, best known as the original bass player of The Beatles. Sutcliffe left the band to pursue a career as an artist, having previously attended the Liverpool College of Art...
in the Kaiserkeller bar in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
in 1960, where he was playing bass with The Beatles, and was later engaged to him before his death in 1962.
Although Kirchherr has taken very few photographs since 1967, her early work has been exhibited in Hamburg, Bremen
Bremen
The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
, Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, and at the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. Kirchherr has published three limited-edition books of photographs.
Early life
Astrid Kirchherr was born in 1938 in HamburgHamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, and is the daughter of a former executive
Corporate title
Publicly and privately held for-profit corporations confer corporate titles or business titles on company officials as a means of identifying their function in the organization...
of the German branch of the Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...
. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
she was evacuated to the safety of the Baltic Sea
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
where she remembered seeing dead bodies on the shore (after the ships Cap Arcona and the SS Deutschland
SS Deutschland (1923)
SS Deutschland Sometimes called Deutschland IV to distinguish from others of the name was a 21,046 gross registered ton German HAPAG ocean liner which was sunk in a British air attack in 1945, with great loss of life....
had been bombed and sunk) and the destruction in Hamburg when she returned.
After her graduation
Graduation
Graduation is the action of receiving or conferring an academic degree or the ceremony that is sometimes associated, where students become Graduates. Before the graduation, candidates are referred to as Graduands. The date of graduation is often called degree day. The graduation itself is also...
Kirchherr enrolled in the Meisterschule für Mode, Textil, Graphik und Werbung in Hamburg, as she wanted to study fashion design
Fashion design
Fashion design is the art of the application of design and aesthetics or natural beauty to clothing and accessories. Fashion design is influenced by cultural and social latitudes, and has varied over time and place. Fashion designers work in a number of ways in designing clothing and accessories....
but demonstrated a talent for black-and-white photography. Reinhard Wolf, the school's main photographic tutor, convinced her to switch courses and promised that he would hire her as his assistant when she graduated. Kirchherr worked for Wolf as his assistant from 1959 until 1963.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s Kirchherr and her art school friends were involved in the European existentialist movement whose followers were later nicknamed "Exis" by John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
. In 1995 she told BBC Radio Merseyside
BBC Radio Merseyside
BBC Radio Merseyside is the BBC Local Radio service for the English metropolitan county of Merseyside and north Cheshire. It was the third BBC local radio station to launch on 22 November 1967 initially serving the south west of historic Lancashire....
: "Our philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
then, because we were only little kids, was wearing black clothes and going around looking moody. Of course, we had a clue who Jean Paul Sartre was. We got inspired by all the French artists and writers, because that was the closest we could get. England was so far away, and America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
was out of the question. So France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
was the nearest. So we got all the information from France, and we tried to dress like the French existentialists. ... We wanted to be free, we wanted to be different, and tried to be cool
Cool (aesthetic)
Something regarded as cool is an admired aesthetic of attitude, behavior, comportment, appearance and style, influenced by and a product of the Zeitgeist. Because of the varied and changing connotations of cool, as well its subjective nature, the word has no single meaning. It has associations of...
, as we call it now."
The Beatles
Kirchherr, Voormann, and Vollmer were friends who had all attended the Meisterschule, and shared the same ideas about fashion, culture and music. Voorman became Astrid's boyfriend, and moved into the Kirchherr home, where he had his own room. In 1960, after Kirchherr and Vollmer had had an argument with Voormann, he wandered down the ReeperbahnReeperbahn
The Reeperbahn is a street in Hamburg's St. Pauli district, one of the two centres of Hamburg's nightlife and also the city's red-light district...
(in the St.Pauli district of Hamburg) and heard music coming from the Kaiserkeller
Kaiserkeller
Kaiserkeller is a night club in the St. Pauli quarter of Hamburg, Germany, near the Reeperbahn. It was opened by Bruno Koschmider on October 14, 1959. The Beatles had a contract with Kaiserkeller to play there in 1960.-Biography:...
club. Voormann walked in and watched a performance by a group called The Beatles. Voormann asked Kirchherr and Vollmer to listen to this new music, and after being persuaded to visit the Kaiserkeller (which was in the rough area of the Reeperbahn) Kirchherr decided that all she wanted to do was to be as close to The Beatles as she could. The trio of friends had never heard this new music called Rock n' Roll before, having previously only listened to Trad jazz
Trad jazz
Trad jazz - short for "traditional jazz" - refers to the Dixieland and Ragtime jazz styles of the early 20th century in contrast to any more modern style....
, with some Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
and The Platters
The Platters
The Platters were a vocal group of the early rock and roll era. Their distinctive sound was a bridge between the pre-rock Tin Pan Alley tradition and the burgeoning new genre...
mixed in. The trio then visited the Kaiserkeller almost every night, arriving at 9 o'clock and sitting by the front of the stage. Kirchherr later said: "It was like a merry-go-round in my head, they looked absolutely astonishing... My whole life changed in a couple of minutes. All I wanted was to be with them and to know them."
Kirchherr later said that she, Voormann, and Vollmer felt guilty about being German, and about Germany's recent history. Meeting The Beatles was something very special for her, although she knew that English people would think that she ate sauerkraut
Sauerkraut
Sauerkraut , directly translated from German: "sour cabbage", is finely shredded cabbage that has been fermented by various lactic acid bacteria, including Leuconostoc, Lactobacillus, and Pediococcus. It has a long shelf-life and a distinctive sour flavor, both of which result from the lactic acid...
, and would comment on her heavy German accent, but they made jokes about it together. Lennon would make sarcastic remarks from the stage, saying "You Krauts
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
, we won the war," knowing that very few Germans in the audience spoke English, but any English sailors present would roar with laughter.
Sutcliffe was fascinated by the trio, but especially Kirchherr, and thought they looked like "real bohemian
Bohemian style
In modern usage, the term "Bohemian" is applied to people who live unconventional, usually artistic, lives. The adherents of the "Bloomsbury Group", which formed around the Stephen sisters, Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf in the early 20th century, are among the best-known examples...
s". Bill Harry
Bill Harry
Bill Harry is the creator of Mersey Beat, an important newspaper of the early 1960s, which focused on the Liverpool music scene...
later said that when Kirchherr walked in, every head would immediately turn her way, and that she always captivated the whole room. Sutcliffe wrote to a friend that he could hardly take his eyes off her, and had tried to talk to Kirchherr during the next break, but she had already left the club.
Sutcliffe managed to meet them eventually, and learned that all three had attended the Meisterschule, which was the same type of art college that Lennon and Sutcliffe had attended in Liverpool. (Note: Meisterschule für Mode, Textil, Grafik und Werbung [Master Craftspeople College
for Fashion, Textile, Graphics, and Advertising], although it is now called the University of Applied Sciences). Kirchherr asked The Beatles if they would mind letting her take photographs of them in a photo session, which impressed them, as other groups only had snapshots
Snapshot (photography)
A snapshot is popularly defined as a photograph that is "shot" spontaneously and quickly, most often without artistic or journalistic intent. Snapshots are commonly considered to be technically "imperfect" or amateurish—out of focus or poorly framed or composed...
that were taken by friends. The next morning Kirchherr took photographs (with a Rolleicord
Rolleicord
The Rolleicord was a popular medium-format twin lens reflex camera made by Franke & Heidecke between 1933 and 1976. It was a simpler, less expensive version of the high-end Rolleiflex TLR, aimed at amateur photographers who wanted a high-quality camera but could not afford the expensive Rolleiflex...
camera) at a fairground
Funfair
A funfair or simply "fair" is a small to medium sized travelling show primarily composed of stalls and other amusements. Larger fairs such as the permanent fairs of cities and seaside resorts might be called a fairground, although technically this should refer to the land where a fair is...
in a municipal park called "der Dom" (Cathedral) which was close to the Reeperbahn, and in the afternoon she took them all (minus Best who decided not to go) to her mother's house in Altona. Kirchherr's bedroom (which was all in black, including the furniture, with silver foil on the walls and a large tree branch suspended from the ceiling) was decorated especially for Voormann, whom she had a relationship with, although after the visits to the Kaiserkeller their relationship became purely platonic. Kirchherr started dating Sutcliffe, although she always remained close friends with Voormann.
Medical prescription
A prescription is a health-care program implemented by a physician or other medical practitioner in the form of instructions that govern the plan of care for an individual patient. Prescriptions may include orders to be performed by a patient, caretaker, nurse, pharmacist or other therapist....
note, so Kirchherr's mother got them from a local chemist, who supplied them without asking questions. After meeting Kirchherr, Lennon filled his letters to Cynthia Powell
Cynthia Lennon
Cynthia Lillian Lennon is the former wife of musician John Lennon, and mother of Julian Lennon. She grew up in the middle-class section of Hoylake, on the Wirral Peninsula in North West England. At the age of twelve, she was accepted into the Junior Art School, and was later enrolled in the...
(his girlfriend at the time) with "Astrid said this, Astrid did that", which made Powell jealous, until she read that Sutcliffe was in a relationship with Kirchherr. When Powell visited Hamburg with Dot Rhone (Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
's girlfriend at the time) in April 1961, they stayed at Kirchherr's house. In August 1963, Kirchherr met Lennon and Cynthia in Paris while they both there for a belated honeymoon
Honeymoon
-History:One early reference to a honeymoon is in Deuteronomy 24:5 “When a man is newly wed, he need not go out on a military expedition, nor shall any public duty be imposed on him...
, as Kirchherr was there with a girlfriend for a few days holiday. The four of them went from wine bar to wine bar, and finally ended up back at Kirchherr's lodgings, where all four fell asleep on Kirchherr's single bed.
The Beatles met Kirchherr again in Hamburg in 1966 when they were touring Germany, and Kirchherr gave Lennon the letters he'd written to Sutcliffe in 1961 and 1962. Lennon said it was 'the best present I've had in years'. All of The Beatles wrote many letters to Kirchherr: "I only have a couple from George, which I'll never show anyone, but he wrote so many. So did the others. I probably threw them away. You do that when you're young-you don't think of the future." Harrison later asked Kirchherr to arrange the cover of his Wonderwall Music
Wonderwall Music
Wonderwall Music is George Harrison's first solo album and the soundtrack to the film Wonderwall. The songs are virtually all instrumental, except for some non-English vocals and a slowed-down spoken word track. The songs were recorded in December 1967 in England, and January 1968 in Bombay, India...
album in 1968.
The Beatles Haircut and clothes
Kirchherr is credited with inventing The Beatles' moptop haircut although she disagrees, saying: "All that rubbish people said, that I created their hairstyle, that's rubbish! Lots of German boys had that hairstyle. Stuart had it for a long while and the others copied it. I suppose the most important thing I contributed to them was friendship." In 1995, Kirchherr told BBC Radio Merseyside: "All my friends in art school used to run around with this sort of what you call Beatles haircut. And my boyfriend then, Klaus Voormann, had this hairstyle, and Stuart liked it very very much. He was the first one who really got the nerve to get the BrylcreemBrylcreem
Brylcreem is a brand of hair styling products for men. The first Brylcreem product was a pomade created in 1928 by County Chemicals at the Chemico Works in Bradford Street, Birmingham, England. The pomade is an emulsion of water and mineral oil stabilised with beeswax.Beecham was the longtime...
out of his hair and asking me to cut his hair for him. Pete Best
Pete Best
Pete Best is a British musician, best known as the original drummer in The Beatles. He was born in the city of Madras, British India...
(The Beatles' original drummer) has really curly hair and it wouldn't work." Kirchherr says that after she cut Sutcliffe's hair, Harrison asked her to do the same when she was visiting Liverpool, and Lennon and McCartney had their hair cut in the same style while they were in Paris, by Kirchherr's friend, Vollmer, who was living there at the time as an assistant to photographer William Klein
William Klein
William Klein is a photographer and filmmaker noted to for his ironic approach to both media and his extensive use of unusual photographic techniques in the context of photojournalism and fashion photography...
.
After moving into the Kirchherr family's house, Sutcliffe used to borrow her clothes, as he was the same height as Kirchherr. He wore her leather pants and jackets, collarless jackets, over-sized shirts, and long scarves. He also borrowed a corduroy
Corduroy
Corduroy is a textile composed of twisted fibers that, when woven, lie parallel to one another to form the cloth's distinct pattern, a "cord." Modern corduroy is most commonly composed of tufted cords, sometimes exhibiting a channel between the tufts...
suit with no lapels that he wore on stage, which prompted Lennon to sarcastically ask if his mother had lent him the suit.
Stuart Sutcliffe
Stuart SutcliffeStuart Sutcliffe
Stuart Fergusson Victor Sutcliffe was a Scottish artist and musician, best known as the original bass player of The Beatles. Sutcliffe left the band to pursue a career as an artist, having previously attended the Liverpool College of Art...
wrote to friends that he was infatuated with Kirchherr, and asked her friends which colours, films, books and painters she liked, and who she fancied. Best commented that the beginning of their relationship was, "like one of those fairy stories". Kirchherr says that she immediately fell in love with Sutcliffe, and still calls him "the love of my life". Kirchherr and Sutcliffe got engaged in November 1960, and exchanged rings, as is the German custom. Sutcliffe later wrote to his parents that he was engaged to Kirchherr, which they were shocked to learn, as they thought he would give up his career as an artist, although he told Kirchherr that he would like to be an art teacher in London or Germany in the future. Sutcliffe later borrowed money from Kirchherr for the airfare to fly back to Liverpool in February 1961, returning to Hamburg in March.
Kirchherr and Sutcliffe went to Liverpool in the summer of 1961, as Kirchherr wanted to meet Sutcliffe's family (and to see Liverpool) before their marriage. Everybody was expecting a strange beatnik
Beatnik
Beatnik was a media stereotype of the 1950s and early 1960s that displayed the more superficial aspects of the Beat Generation literary movement of the 1950s and violent film images, along with a cartoonish depiction of the real-life people and the spiritual quest in Jack Kerouac's autobiographical...
artist from Hamburg, but Kirchherr turned up at the Sutcliffe's house at 37 Aigburth
Aigburth
Aigburth is a suburb of Liverpool, Merseyside, England. Located to the south of the city, it is bordered by Dingle, Mossley Hill, and Garston.-History:...
Drive, Liverpool, bearing a single long-stemmed orchid in her hand as a present, and dressed in a round-necked cashmere
Cashmere wool
Cashmere wool, usually simply known as cashmere, is a fiber obtained from Cashmere and other types of goats. The word cashmere derives from an old spelling of Kashmir. Cashmere is fine in texture, and strong, light, and soft. Garments made from it provide excellent...
sweater and tailored skirt. In 1962, Sutcliffe collapsed in the middle of an art class in Hamburg. He was suffering from intense headaches, and Kirchherr's mother had German doctors perform various checks on him, although they were unable to determine exactly what was causing the headaches. While living at the Kirchherrs' house in Hamburg his condition got worse. On 10 April 1962, Kirchherr's mother phoned her daughter at work and told her Sutcliffe was not feeling well, had been brought back to the house, and an ambulance had been called for. Kirchherr rushed home and rode with Sutcliffe in the ambulance, but he died in her arms before it reached the hospital.
Three days later Kirchherr met Lennon, McCartney and Best at the Hamburg airport (they were returning to Hamburg to perform) and told them Sutcliffe had died of a brain haemorrhage. Harrison and manager Brian Epstein
Brian Epstein
Brian Samuel Epstein , was an English music entrepreneur, and is best known for being the manager of The Beatles up until his death. He also managed several other musical artists such as Gerry & the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, Cilla Black, The Remo Four & The Cyrkle...
arrived on another plane sometime later with Sutcliffe's mother, who had been informed by telegram. Harrison and Lennon were helpful towards the distraught Kirchherr, with Lennon telling her one day that she definitely had to decide if she wanted to "Live or die, there is no other question."
Photography
In 1964, Kirchherr became a freelance photographer, and with her colleague Max Scheler she took "behind the scenes" photographs of The Beatles during the filming of "A Hard Day's NightA Hard Day's Night (film)
A Hard Day's Night is a 1964 British black-and-white comedy film directed by Richard Lester and starring The Beatles—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr—during the height of Beatlemania. It was written by Alun Owen and originally released by United Artists...
", as an assignment for the German Stern
Stern (magazine)
Stern is a weekly news magazine published in Germany. It was founded in 1948 by Henri Nannen, and is currently published by Gruner + Jahr, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann. In the first quarter of 2006, its print run was 1.019 million copies and it reached 7.84 million readers according to...
magazine. Epstein had forbidden any publicity photographs to be taken without his permission, but Kirchherr phoned Harrison, who said he would arrange it, but added, "Only if they pay you."
Bill Harry
Bill Harry is the creator of Mersey Beat, an important newspaper of the early 1960s, which focused on the Liverpool music scene...
at his Mersey Beat
Mersey Beat
Mersey Beat was a music publication in Liverpool, England in the early 1960s. It was founded by Bill Harry, who was one of John Lennon's classmates at Liverpool Art College...
newspaper and asked if he could arrange a photograph of all the groups in Liverpool, so Harry suggested Kirchherr be the photographer, although Kirchherr later said she placed an advertisement in the Liverpool Echo newspaper. Kirchherr and Scheler said that any group who wanted their photograph taken in front of St. George's Hall
St. George's Hall, Liverpool
St George's Hall is on Lime Street in the centre of the English city of Liverpool, opposite Lime Street railway station. It is a building in Neoclassical style which contains concert halls and law courts, and has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building...
would be paid £1 per musician, but over 200 groups turned up on the day, which meant Kirchherr and Scheler soon ran out of money. Kirchherr didn't publish the photographs until 1995, in a book called Liverpool Days, which is a limited edition collection of black-and-white photographs. In 1999, a companion book called Hamburg Days was published (a two-volume limited edition) containing a set of photographs by Kirchherr and "memory drawings" by Voormann. The drawings are recollections of places and situations that Voormann clearly remembers, but Kirchherr had never photographed, or had lost the photographs.
Kirchherr described how difficult it was to be accepted as a female photographer in the 1960s: "Every magazine and newspaper wanted me to photograph The Beatles again. Or they wanted my old stuff, even if it was out of focus, whether they were nice or not. They wouldn't look at my other work. It was very hard for a girl photographer in the 60s to be accepted. In the end I gave up. I've hardly taken a photo since 1967." Kirchherr was quoted as saying that When We Was Fab (Genesis Publications
Genesis Publications
Genesis Publications Limited is a British publishing company founded in 1974 by Brian Roylance, a former student of the London College of Printing. His aim was to create a company in the traditions of the private press, true to the arts of printing and book binding...
2007) would be her last book of photographs: "I have decided it is time to create one book in which I am totally involved so that it contains the pictures I like most, printed the way I would print them, even down to the text and design.... This book is me and that is why it will be the last one. The very last one."
Kirchherr has expressed respect for other photographers, such as Annie Leibovitz
Annie Leibovitz
Anna-Lou "Annie" Leibovitz is an American portrait photographer.-Early life and education:Born in Waterbury, Connecticut, Leibovitz is the third of six children. She is a third-generation American whose great-grandparents were Jewish immigrants, from Central and Eastern Europe. Her father's...
(because of the humour in her work), Irving Penn
Irving Penn
Irving Penn was an American photographer known for his portraiture and fashion photography.-Early career:Irving Penn studied under Alexey Brodovitch at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art from which he was graduated in 1938. Penn's drawings were published by Harper's Bazaar and he...
, Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon was an American photographer. An obituary published in The New York Times said that "his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century."-Photography career:Avedon was born in New York City to a Jewish Russian...
, Jim Rakete and Reinhard Wolf (German Wikipedia) and French film-makers François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
, and Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
. Kirchherr said that her favourite photos are the ones she took of Sutcliffe by the Baltic sea, and of Lennon and George Harrison in her attic room at 45a Eimsbütteler Strasse. She has expressed reservations about digital photography, saying that a photographer should concentrate on the art of photography and not on the technical results, although admitting that she knows nothing about computers, and is "afraid of the internet".
Kirchherr admits that she is not good at business as she is not organised enough, and has never really looked after the negatives of her photographs to prove ownership. Her business partner Ulf Krüger—a songwriter and record producer—successfully found many of Astrid's negatives and photographs and had them copyrighted, although he believes that Kirchherr has lost £500,000 over the years because of people using her photographs without permission. In July 2001 Kirchherr visited Liverpool to open an exhibition of her work at the Mathew Street
Mathew Street
Mathew Street is a street in Liverpool, England, best-known worldwide as the location of the Cavern Club, where The Beatles played on numerous occasions in their early career...
art gallery, which is close to the former site of The Cavern Club
The Cavern Club
The Cavern Club is a rock and roll club in Liverpool, England. Opened on Wednesday 16 January 1957, the club had their first performance by The Beatles on 9 February 1961, and where Brian Epstein first saw The Beatles performing on 9 November 1961....
. She appeared as a guest at the city's Beatles Week Festival during the August Bank Holiday. Kirchherr's work has been exhibited internationally in places, such as Hamburg, Bremen, London, Liverpool, New York City, Washington, D.C., Tokyo, Vienna, and at the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.
Later life to present
In 1967, Kirchherr married English drummer Gibson Kemp, who had replaced Ringo StarrRingo Starr
Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...
in Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. The marriage ended in divorce after seven years. She worked as a barmaid, an interior designer, and then worked for a music publishing firm, getting married for a second time to a German businessman.
Kirchherr worked as an advisor, in 1994, on the film Backbeat
Backbeat (film)
Backbeat is a 1994 British-German drama film directed by Iain Softley. It chronicles the early days of The Beatles in Hamburg, Germany. The film focuses primarily on the relationship between Stuart Sutcliffe and John Lennon , and also with Sutcliffe's German girlfriend Astrid Kirchherr...
, which portrayed Kirchherr, Sutcliffe and The Beatles during their early days in Hamburg. She was impressed with Stephen Dorff
Stephen Dorff
Stephen Dorff is an American actor, best known for portraying Stuart Sutcliffe in Backbeat, Johnny Marco in Somewhere, and for his roles in Blade and Cecil B. DeMented.-Early life:...
(who played Sutcliffe in the film) commenting that he was the right age (19-years-old at the time)
and his gestures, the way he smoked, and talked were so like Sutcliffe's that she had goose pimples. Kirchherr was portrayed in the film by actress Sheryl Lee
Sheryl Lee
Sheryl Lee is an American actress. She came to international attention for her performances as Laura Palmer and Maddy Ferguson on the 1990 cult TV series Twin Peaks and in the 1992 film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me...
.
Since the mid-1990s Kirchherr and business partner Krüger have operated the K&K photography shop in Hamburg, offering custom vintage prints, books and artwork for sale. K&K periodically helps arrange Beatles' conventions and other Beatles' events in the Hamburg area. She has no children, and now lives alone: ""My [second] marriage ended in 1985... I regretted I had no children. I just couldn't see me have [sic] any. But now I am pleased when I see the situation the world is in. I live alone and am very happy."
External links
- Biography
- Interview
- Interviews: Photographer Astrid Kirchherr, Fresh AirFresh AirFresh Air is an American radio talk show broadcast on National Public Radio stations across the United States. The show is produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its longtime host is Terry Gross. , the show was syndicated to 450 stations and claimed 4.5 million listeners. The show...
, 15 January 2008