Iain Macmillan (British, 1938-2006) A Rare Series of Photographs of John and Yoko, 'Dissolving H...
Iain Macmillan (British, 1938-2006)
A Rare Series of Photographs of John and Yoko, 'Dissolving Heads', New York, 1971, printed mid-1980s
five black and white archival photographic prints taken from the original negatives by the photographer, professionally mounted on artboard at the time of production, the first print of John Lennon has been hand-annotated in pencil by Macmillan 'Dissolving Heads. New York. 1971', and the last print of Yoko Ono has been signed in green ink by the photographer
image 20 x 25.5cm (8 x 10in) each; overall 25.5 x 30.5cm (10 x 12in) each, (5)
Footnotes:
Provenance
According to information from the vendor, these were purchased from a London gallery in the late 1980s/early 1990s
Iain Macmillan is undoubtedly best known for his Beatles 'Abbey Road' album cover photographs but he is also responsible for some iconic images of John and Yoko. The 'Dissolving Heads' series depicts a sequence of five photographs of John's face morphing into Yoko's. lain Macmillan's close-up portraits of John and Yoko that formed the basis for the dissolving heads series were first used on the back cover of the catalogue for Yoko Ono's exhibition, 'This Is Not Here', at New York's Everson Art Museum in October 1971. They were then also used on John and Yoko's 1971 single 'Happy Christmas (War Is Over)', where the five images appeared in sequence on the record label. It featured again on their single 'Woman Is The Nigger Of The World', released in 1972. The album 'Some Time In New York City', which was also released in 1972, was the last release to feature the dissolving heads imagery.
The set was created by Iain from two negatives, a portrait of each of the couple. The other three images were a result of some challenging technical darkroom wizardry, making carefully timed double exposures to create the morphed effect. The nature of this process meant that no two sets of images would be the same.
A set of 'Dissolving Heads' portraits was exhibited in Dundee's Discovery Point Gallery in Scotland from February-June 2010, in a celebratory retrospective hometown exhibition of lain Macmillan's photographs, entitled 'From Dundee To Abbey Road'.
This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: † AR
† VAT at the prevailing rate on Hammer Price and Buyer's Premium.
AR Goods subject to Artists Resale Right Additional Premium.
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Iain Macmillan (British, 1938-2006)
A Rare Series of Photographs of John and Yoko, 'Dissolving Heads', New York, 1971, printed mid-1980s
five black and white archival photographic prints taken from the original negatives by the photographer, professionally mounted on artboard at the time of production, the first print of John Lennon has been hand-annotated in pencil by Macmillan 'Dissolving Heads. New York. 1971', and the last print of Yoko Ono has been signed in green ink by the photographer
image 20 x 25.5cm (8 x 10in) each; overall 25.5 x 30.5cm (10 x 12in) each, (5)
Footnotes:
Provenance
According to information from the vendor, these were purchased from a London gallery in the late 1980s/early 1990s
Iain Macmillan is undoubtedly best known for his Beatles 'Abbey Road' album cover photographs but he is also responsible for some iconic images of John and Yoko. The 'Dissolving Heads' series depicts a sequence of five photographs of John's face morphing into Yoko's. lain Macmillan's close-up portraits of John and Yoko that formed the basis for the dissolving heads series were first used on the back cover of the catalogue for Yoko Ono's exhibition, 'This Is Not Here', at New York's Everson Art Museum in October 1971. They were then also used on John and Yoko's 1971 single 'Happy Christmas (War Is Over)', where the five images appeared in sequence on the record label. It featured again on their single 'Woman Is The Nigger Of The World', released in 1972. The album 'Some Time In New York City', which was also released in 1972, was the last release to feature the dissolving heads imagery.
The set was created by Iain from two negatives, a portrait of each of the couple. The other three images were a result of some challenging technical darkroom wizardry, making carefully timed double exposures to create the morphed effect. The nature of this process meant that no two sets of images would be the same.
A set of 'Dissolving Heads' portraits was exhibited in Dundee's Discovery Point Gallery in Scotland from February-June 2010, in a celebratory retrospective hometown exhibition of lain Macmillan's photographs, entitled 'From Dundee To Abbey Road'.
This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: † AR
† VAT at the prevailing rate on Hammer Price and Buyer's Premium.
AR Goods subject to Artists Resale Right Additional Premium.
Estimate
Reserve
Time, Location
Auction House
