Who is astrid kirchherr

Soon after they began living together, he began attending art school in Hamburg and painted with a renewed energy despite being dogged by debilitating headaches.

It is hard now to grasp how tumultuous his sudden death, aged 21, was for her at a time that promised so much. Lennon, too, was devastated at the loss of his close friend. When he and Harrison visited the loft studio, he asked Kirchherr to photograph him standing in the same spot that Sutcliffe had stood in for a previous portrait by her.

There is a palpable sadness that emanates from her image of a shell-shocked Lennon standing in the ghostly half-light, but she much preferred another portrait she made in the same session.

In many ways, the young Kirchherr was an outlier, a stylish bohemian who understood the ways in which art could impact on popular culture, and vice versa. In a dingy, disreputable Hamburg bar, amid the noise and the squalor, she detected something beautiful. She was in the right place at exactly the right time. And so, more to the point, were they. Astrid Kirchherr: a stylish outsider who saw beauty in the Beatles.

The photographer, who died last week, perceived something unique in the band she met in Hamburg in , and the results changed pop for ever Beatles photographer Astrid Kirchherr dies aged 81 Obituary by Spencer Leigh. But today her name is steadily entering the world of pop mythology through publications of books and, most visibly, the movie Backbeat which traces the difficult three-way relationship between herself, Sutcliffe and Lennon during those Hamburg days.

However it is her groundbreaking photographic work -- taken on a Rolleicord camera -- which is perhaps more noteworthy. Kirchherr met Roylance when he asked her to sign copies of Blinds and Shutters , and both Liverpool Days and Hamburg Days grew from there. The ones I did were all thought out. But the signs were already there. Three hundred and fifty did. And the photo of them is in Liverpool Days. In Liverpool Days Kirchherr is photographed outside the famous Cavern at the head of a queue of a hundred or so people half her age.

They are no longer the leather-jacketed, sullen figures she knew from Hamburg either, but refashioned into suits and ties. But the works do capture a period and an image. By giving the Beatles themselves copies of all the pictures she took they eventually found their way into the hands of others and were widely reproduced, most often without her receiving credit let alone financial recompense. Although also credited with creating that famous mop-top hairstyle when she encouraged Sutcliffe to wash out the grease and brush his hair forward in the manner of Jean Cocteau albeit considerably longer , she all but faded from sight over the years.

They had their own story -- so why should I talk to them? Naturally she was suspicious of Backbeat director Ian Softley when he approached her to make a movie his movie about Sutcliffe, but after initial no-promises meetings she was happy to contribute to the film and now admits enjoying seeing her life portrayed with such sensitivity.

As for her photography, that went long ago. Kirchherr recalls that brief period in her life without sentimentality but with some sadness at the losses she suffered: Sutcliffe whom she was to marry after he finished a painting course at the Hamburg State College of Art was her first. Distance allows her a new perspective and she says she enjoyed reminiscing with the actors in the Backbeat movie. They shared their large house in the city with several extended family members.

Astrid was evacuated to Scharbeutz on the Baltic Sea during the second world war while her father delivered supplies of food and munition to troops. After graduation, she became his assistant. It is often reported that Lennon acted bravely by impersonating Hitler in German beat clubs, but the truth is different.

While there, she also took some affecting pictures of the effects of poverty in Liverpool around Falkner Street. Kirchherr got to know other Liverpool bands, and she took stunning photographs of the musicians Rory Storm and Jackie Lomax , among others.