Robert Freeman (photographer)
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Robert Freeman (5 December 1936 – 6 or 7 November 2019) was an English photographer and
graphic designer A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, ...
best known for his work with
the Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...
, shooting some of the band's most recognizable images featured on several of their album covers. From 1963 to 1966, he worked extensively with the group and did the photography and design on five of their album sleeves released consecutively on the
Parlophone Parlophone Records Limited (also known as Parlophone Records and Parlophone) is a German–British record label founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch of the label was founded on 8 August 192 ...
label in the UK, as well as on several albums on Capitol Records in the US and on various labels in other countries. Freeman designed the end credit sequences for their first two films and some of the graphics and photography displayed on the films' posters and promotional materials. He worked as a film director on the rarely-seen
Swinging London The Swinging Sixties was a youth-driven cultural revolution that took place in the United Kingdom during the mid-to-late 1960s, emphasising modernity and fun-loving hedonism, with Swinging London as its centre. It saw a flourishing in art, mus ...
cult film '' The Touchables'' in 1968, which starred
Judy Huxtable Judy Huxtable (born 4 July 1942) is a British actress. Early life and career Born in Surrey, England, to wealthy parents, Huxtable was initially a society débutante and then became a fashionable figure in 1960s "swinging London" and, as a mode ...
and David Anthony, and featured music by the British band
Nirvana ( , , ; sa, निर्वाण} ''nirvāṇa'' ; Pali: ''nibbāna''; Prakrit: ''ṇivvāṇa''; literally, "blown out", as in an oil lampRichard Gombrich, ''Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benāres to Modern Colombo.' ...
. He co-directed the 1969 film '' Secret World'' ''(La Promesse)'' with Paul Feyder. Freeman first came to prominence as a photo journalist working for the British newspaper ''The Sunday Times'', for which he photographed a variety of subjects, including
Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
in the
Kremlin The Kremlin ( rus, Московский Кремль, r=Moskovskiy Kreml', p=ˈmɐˈskofskʲɪj krʲemlʲ, t=Moscow Kremlin) is a fortified complex in the center of Moscow founded by the Rurik dynasty, Rurik dynasty. It is the best known of th ...
. He had also become noted for his black-and-white photographs of several jazz musicians including
John Coltrane John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of br ...
. It was these photographs which impressed the Beatles' manager
Brian Epstein Brian Samuel Epstein (; 19 September 1934 – 27 August 1967) was a British music entrepreneur who managed the Beatles from 1962 until his death in 1967. Epstein was born into a family of successful retailers in Liverpool, who put him i ...
and the Beatles themselves and led to his first commission in August 1963 to photograph the group. He was selected to photograph the entirety of the first ever
Pirelli Calendar The Pirelli Calendar, known and trade-marked as "The Cal", is an annual trade calendar which has been published by the UK subsidiary of the Italian tyre manufacturing company Pirelli since 1964. The calendar has a reputation for its choice of ...
, shot in 1963 for the year 1964.


Early career

Robert Freeman graduated from Cambridge in 1959.


Work with the Beatles


''With the Beatles'' album cover

The cover for ''
With the Beatles ''With the Beatles'' is the second studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. It was released in the United Kingdom on 22 November 1963 on Parlophone, eight months after the band's debut ''Please Please Me''. Produced by George Martin ...
'' was shot by Freeman on 22 August 1963 in the Palace Court Hotel,
Bournemouth Bournemouth () is a coastal resort town in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council area of Dorset, England. At the 2011 census, the town had a population of 183,491, making it the largest town in Dorset. It is situated on the Southern ...
, England. Freeman recalled:
Paul McCartney Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...
's recollection of the session: The original idea was to print the picture from edge to edge, with no border or title, but the studio vetoed it, on the grounds that the Beatles were not yet famous enough to carry a nameless cover. (The first album to carry an edge-to-edge cover was
The Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the gritty, rhythmically d ...
' self-titled debut, released a few months later.) The studio also tried to pull the cover, because the Beatles were not smiling, and it was only after George Martin intervened that they won the day. Freeman was paid £75 for his work, three times the normal fee.


''Beatles for Sale'' cover

The album cover for ''
Beatles for Sale ''Beatles for Sale'' is the fourth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. It was released on 4 December 1964 in the United Kingdom on EMI's Parlophone label. The album marked a departure from the upbeat tone that had characterised ...
'' shows the Beatles in an autumnal setting photographed in
Hyde Park, London Hyde Park is a Grade I-listed major park in Westminster, Greater London, the largest of the four Royal Parks that form a chain from the entrance to Kensington Palace through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, via Hyde Park Corner and Green Pa ...
. McCartney recalled: "The album cover was rather nice: Robert Freeman's photos. It was easy. We did a session lasting a couple of hours and had some reasonable pictures to use ... The photographer would always be able to say to us, 'Just show up,' because we all wore the same kind of gear all the time. Black stuff; white shirts and big black scarves." The album also features a gatefold cover, the photo inside the gatefold cover showed the Beatles standing in front of a montage of photos.


''Help!'' cover

The ''
Help! ''Help!'' is the fifth studio album by the English Rock music, rock band the Beatles and the soundtrack to their Help! (film), film of the same name. It was released on 6 August 1965. Seven of the fourteen songs, including the singles "Help! ( ...
'' album cover features the group spelling out a word in
semaphore Semaphore (; ) is the use of an apparatus to create a visual signal transmitted over distance. A semaphore can be performed with devices including: fire, lights, flags, sunlight, and moving arms. Semaphores can be used for telegraphy when arra ...
; the British
Parlophone Parlophone Records Limited (also known as Parlophone Records and Parlophone) is a German–British record label founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch of the label was founded on 8 August 192 ...
release featured the word 'NUJV', whilst the slightly re-arranged United States release on
Capitol Records Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007) is an American record label distributed by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of note ...
appeared to feature the word 'NVUJ'. However, it may be argued that some of the members of the band were not only re-arranged but reversed as well. The following semaphore characters show the correct spelling of "HELP" as seen if facing the flagman: However, the truth is the photo does not spell any message at all in semaphore. Robert Freeman confirmed this: "I had the idea of semaphore spelling out the letters HELP. But when we came to do the shot the arrangement of the arms with those letters didn't look good. So we decided to improvise and ended up with the best graphic positioning of the arms."


''Rubber Soul'' cover

The photo of the Beatles on the ''
Rubber Soul ''Rubber Soul'' is the sixth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. It was released on 3 December 1965 in the United Kingdom, on EMI's Parlophone label, accompanied by the non-album double A-side single "Day Tripper" / "We Can Work ...
'' cover appears stretched. McCartney relates the story behind this in Volume 5 of the documentary film ''
Anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors. In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically categ ...
''. Photographer Bob Freeman had taken some pictures of the Beatles at Lennon's house. Freeman showed the photos to the Beatles by projecting them onto an album-sized piece of cardboard to simulate how they would appear on an album cover. The unusual ''Rubber Soul'' album cover came to be when the slide card fell slightly backwards, elongating the projected image of the photograph and stretching it. Excited by the effect, they shouted, "Ah! Can we have that? Can you do it like that?" Freeman said he could. The lettering was designed by
Charles Front Charles Front is a British illustrator, best known for designing the lettering on the 1965 Beatles album ''Rubber Soul''. He has illustrated several books, including ''A Child's Bible'', ''Never Say Macbeth'', ''The Great White Whale'', ''The L ...
.


Personal life

In the 1960s, Freeman was married to a German-born model, known at the time as Sonny Freeman, with whom he had two children; her maiden name is Spielhagen, she remarried John Drane. He was later married to author Tiddy Rowan with whom he had a daughter. According to a claim in Philip Norman's 2008 biography of Lennon, between 1963 and 1965, Freeman's then wife,
Sonny Drane Sonny Drane (born 13 March 1939) (sometimes erroneously referred to as "Sonny Freeman Drane"), is a German-born woman who was briefly popular as a model in Britain in the 1960s. She was propelled to prominence when her first husband, noted British ...
(a model and 1964 Pirelli calendar-girl), had a year-long clandestine affair with
John Lennon John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...
. Norman further claimed that she was the inspiration for Lennon's song "
Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1965 album ''Rubber Soul''. It was written mainly by John Lennon, with lyrical contributions from Paul McCartney, and credited to the Lennon–McC ...
". No evidence for this claim has been presented other than Drane's own claim to Norman—made for the first time 43 years after the alleged event. Her claim to have inspired the song was not based on any conversation Drane had with Lennon subsequent to the song's composition—just her supposition. Freeman has made no public comment on his ex-wife's belated claim. However John Lennon stated that "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" was inspired by an affair he was having at the time, but he didn't state with whom. This claim is further substantiated by Cynthia Lennon in her 2005 autobiography. According to her claim, sometime after the couple moved to their estate in Kenwood, they were confronted by a furious Bob Freeman accompanied by his wife who appeared in tears behind him. Cynthia Lennon stated that "Bob ignored me and said he wanted to talk to John. They all disappeared into the living room. When John came back into the kitchen I asked him what had been going on, but he shrugged and disappeared upstairs. It was never mentioned between us again, but not long afterwards I heard that Bob and Stacy were divorcing. I couldn't escape the conclusion that she'd had an affair with John". In September 2009, whilst on holiday and staying with his sister in Reigate, Robert Freeman suffered a severe stroke and was admitted to hospital in Redhill. Afterward, he recuperated in a nursing home in Reigate. His family sold a copy of one of his John Lennon portraits on line as a way to pay for his care and help him financially to work on preserving his archive while he was recuperating. This was supported by Paul McCartney's official website.Paul McCartney 20 March 2015: Help Preserve Robert Freeman's Photo Archive
Linked 20 November 2017 Freeman died on 6 or 7 November 2019 in London. The cause of his death was pneumonia.


Publications

* Freeman, Robert, ''The Beatles: A Private View'' Barnes & Noble, New York, 2003,


References


External links


The Line of Best Fit, 20 March 2015: Robert Freeman — The Greatest Forgotten Photographer of the '60s


* {{DEFAULTSORT:Freeman, Robert 1936 births 2019 deaths Photographers from London Alumni of the University of Cambridge Album-cover and concert-poster artists