It’s been over 40 years since the Beatles released Abbey Road, their last recorded album, but the public’s fascination with the Fab Four has stood the passing of time.
Photographer Mike Mitchell, then 18 years old, shot the Beatles performing their iconic first concert in the United States at the Washington Coliseum. The concert occured just two days after the band’s momentous performance onThe Ed Sullivan Show, a debut which drew over 74 million television viewers.
Looking back, Mitchell recalls, “to me, this concert was an opportunity to do portraits, and to get an up close look, to really see who these guys were! Many Americans emerging from the sleep-walking fifties saw the Beatles as very strange creatures indeed. Most of the establishment press treated them as mere novelty. My generation however felt an immediate connection with them and still do.”
The photographs in The Beatles Illuminated were up for auction at Christie’s on July 20, 2011 at 7pm EST. Mitchell’s one-of-a-kind silver gelatin prints fetched a surprising grand total of $361,938 (originally estimated at $100,000).
Read more: http://lightbox.time.com/2011/07/20/beatlemania-revisited/#ixzz1TLb0mH4v
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