46 Facts About Stuart Sutcliffe

Stuart Fergusson Victor Sutcliffe was a Scottish painter and musician best known as the original bass guitarist of the English rock band the Beatles.

Stuart Sutcliffe earned other praise for his paintings, which mostly explored a style related to abstract expressionism.

Stuart Sutcliffe was the eldest child of Martha, a schoolteacher at an infants' school and Charles Stuart Sutcliffe a senior civil servant.

Stuart Sutcliffe's father had moved to Liverpool to help with wartime work in 1943 and subsequently signed on as a ship's engineer, and so was often at sea during his son's early years.

Stuart Sutcliffe had two younger sisters, Pauline and Joyce, as well as three older half-brothers, Joe, Ian, and Charles, and an older half-sister, Mattie, from his father's first marriage, to a woman whose name was Martha.

Stuart Sutcliffe was born at the Edinburgh Royal Maternity Hospital and Simpson Memorial Maternity Pavilion in Edinburgh, Scotland, and after his family moved to England, he was brought up at 37 Aigburth Drive in Liverpool.

Stuart Sutcliffe attended Park View Primary School, Huyton, and Prescot Grammar School from 4 September 1951 to 1956.

Beatles' biographer Philip Norman wrote that Charles Stuart Sutcliffe was a heavy drinker and physically cruel to his wife, which the young Stuart Sutcliffe had witnessed.

Stuart Sutcliffe helped Lennon to improve his artistic skills, and with others, worked with him when Lennon had to submit work for exams.

Stuart Sutcliffe shared a flat with Murray at 9 Percy Street, Liverpool, before being evicted and moving to Hillary Mansions at 3 Gambier Terrace, the home of another art student, Margaret Chapman, who vied with Stuart Sutcliffe to be the best painter in class.

In May 1960, Stuart Sutcliffe joined Lennon, McCartney, and George Harrison.

Stuart Sutcliffe started acting as a booking agent for the group, and they often used his Gambier Terrace flat as a rehearsal room.

Stuart Sutcliffe's playing style was elementary, mostly sticking to root notes of chords.

Stuart Sutcliffe recalls Sutcliffe as being usually good-natured and "animated" before an audience.

Stuart Sutcliffe's profile grew after he began wearing Ray-Ban sunglasses and tight trousers.

Lennon started to criticise Stuart Sutcliffe, making jokes about Stuart Sutcliffe's size and playing.

Lennon took a train home, but as Stuart Sutcliffe had a cold he stayed in Hamburg.

Stuart Sutcliffe later borrowed money from his girlfriend, Astrid Kirchherr, in order to fly back to Liverpool on Friday, 20 January 1961, although he returned to Hamburg in March 1961, with the other Beatles.

In July 1961, Stuart Sutcliffe decided to leave the group to continue painting.

In 1967, a photo of Stuart Sutcliffe was among those on the cover of the Sgt.

Stuart Sutcliffe met Astrid Kirchherr in the Kaiserkeller club, where she had gone to watch the Beatles perform.

Stuart Sutcliffe had been brought up by her widowed mother, Nielsa Kirchherr, on Eimsbutteler Strasse, in a wealthy part of the Hamburg suburb of Altona.

Stuart Sutcliffe wrote to friends that he was infatuated with her, and asked her German friends which colours, films, books and painters she liked.

Kirchherr and Stuart Sutcliffe got engaged in November 1960, and exchanged rings, as is the German custom.

Stuart 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.

Stuart Sutcliffe wore her leather trousers and jackets, collarless jackets, oversized shirts and long scarves, and 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.

One of Stuart Sutcliffe's paintings was shown at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool as part of the John Moores exhibition, from November 1959 until January 1960.

The picture Moores bought was called Summer Painting, and Stuart Sutcliffe attended a formal dinner to celebrate the exhibition with another art student, Susan Williams.

Stuart Sutcliffe had been turned down when he applied to study for an Art Teachers Diploma course at the Liverpool Art College, but after meeting Kirchherr, he decided to leave the Beatles and attend the Hamburg College of Art in June 1961, under the tutelage of Paolozzi, who later wrote a report stating that Stuart Sutcliffe was one of his best students.

Stuart Sutcliffe's few surviving works reveal influence from the British and European abstract artists contemporary with the Abstract Expressionist movement in the United States.

Stuart Sutcliffe's works bear some comparison with those of John Hoyland and Nicolas de Stael, though they are more lyrical.

Stuart Sutcliffe's later works are typically untitled, constructed from heavily impastoed slabs of pigment in the manner of de Stael, whom he learned about from Surrey born, art college instructor, Nicky Horsfield, and overlaid with scratched or squeezed linear elements creating enclosed spaces.

The Walker Art Gallery has other works by Stuart Sutcliffe, which are Self-portrait and The Crucifixion.

In February 1962, Stuart Sutcliffe collapsed during an art class in Hamburg.

Stuart Sutcliffe continued living with the Kirchherrs, but his condition soon worsened.

On 13 April 1962, Kirchherr met the group at Hamburg Airport, telling them that Stuart Sutcliffe had died a few days earlier.

Stuart Sutcliffe's mother flew to Hamburg with Beatles manager Brian Epstein and returned to Liverpool with her son's body.

Oh, Mum, he is in a terrible mood now, he just can't believe that darling Stuart Sutcliffe never comes back.

The cause of Stuart Sutcliffe's aneurysm is unknown, although authors of books on the Beatles have speculated that it was caused by an earlier head injury.

Stuart Sutcliffe may have been either kicked in the head, or thrown, head first, against a brick wall during an attack outside Lathom Hall, after a performance in January 1961.

Stuart Sutcliffe sustained a fractured skull in the fight and Lennon's little finger was broken.

Stuart Sutcliffe refused medical attention at the time and failed to keep an X-ray appointment at Sefton General Hospital.

In 2011, Stuart Sutcliffe's estate released a recording claimed to be Stuart Sutcliffe singing a cover of Elvis Presley's "Love Me Tender", recorded in 1961 and donated to the estate in 2009.

The cover art shows a Stuart Sutcliffe painting entitled Homage to Elvis.

Stuart Sutcliffe was portrayed by David Nicholas Wilkinson in the film Birth of the Beatles and by Lee Williams in In His Life: The John Lennon Story.

The Stuart Sutcliffe Estate sells memorabilia and artifacts of Sutcliffe's, which include poems written by him and the chords and lyrics to songs Lennon and Sutcliffe were learning.