We invite you to share condolences for Astrid Kirchherr in our Guest Book. It was not just her photography but her “moptop” haircut for Sutcliffe that helped form the imagery that would soon cause the group to become international sensations, albeit without Sutcliffe — who died of a brain hemorrhage in 1962, as she rode in the ambulance with him — or Best.She maintained the style that was so influential on the band, telling Gross in 2008 that she “still like(d) to wear leather pants, even though I’m going to be 70 next year.”Kirchherr remained friends with the band after Sutcliffe’s death and continued to photograph them behind the scenes of “A Hard Day’s Night,” photos that she published in a 2008 book, “Yesterday the Beatles Once Upon a Time.” She also shot George Harrison — whom she described as ” always my sort of guardian angel” — for the 1968 “Wonderwall Music” album.In 2010, she released a book of photographs titled “Astrid Kirchherr, A Retrospective” and had an exhibition at the Victoria Gallery and Museum in Liverpool.She was married and divorced twice — first, to Gibson Kemp, who replaced Ringo Starr in Rory Storm and the Hurricanes — and had no children.Even before Twiggy adopted the boyish haircut, it was Kirchherr — seen in photos of that time with a similar cut to the mops she trimmed for the Beatles — who wore, and lived it, first.After the mid-’60s, Kirchherr mostly gave up photography. “My whole life changed in a couple of minutes,” she later said.She was later married and divorced a second time, but had no children.Kirchherr took the first photo of the Beatles as a group, at the city’s fairground in 1960, when the bassist, Stuart Sutcliffe, and the drummer, Pete Best, were still members. We were going around looking moody. Her gift to the Beatles was immeasurable.”Please give an overall site rating:She and the Beatles remained friends – she went on holiday with them in Paris in 1963 just after their first UK No 1 single – and took further acclaimed photographs of the band behind the scenes of the film A Hard Day’s Night. And Stuart was the first one who performed onstage with the so-called Beatles or Klaus haircut.”The Beatles were very taken by the stark, somewhat formal, monochrome look of Voorman and Kirchherr.
Her gift to the Beatles was immeasurable.”A Variety and iHeartRadio Podcast She later admitted that she wasn’t sure at the time whether she’d actually been good at it or only received the acclaim because of having the biggest stars in the world as her seminal subjects. Astrid Kirchherr with Ringo Starr and John Lennon during the filming of A Hard Day’s Night. Astrid Kirchherr, the constant companion of the Beatles in their early days in Hamburg who took the photographs that established their iconic … From there, it is was Kirchherr who coaxed the band to cut their hair into mop-tops for a greater sense of savoir faire.After coming across the group at a gig in 1960, Kirchherr, who was born in Hamburg in 1938, dated and eventually became engaged to Sutcliffe, the band’s first bassist. Kirchherr went on to take numerous photos of the group, showing them both as rebels and romantics. Her first marriage, to the Liverpudlian musician Gibson Kemp, also had a Beatles connection – he was the replacement for Ringo Starr in the band Rory Storm and the Hurricanes.Like us on Facebook to see similar storiesAstrid Kirchherr, the photographer whose shots of the Beatles helped turn them into icons, has died aged 81.Kirchherr was born in Hamburg in 1938, and spent the second world war evacuated to beside the Baltic Sea. He described his “lifelong friend” as “a great girl who took my favourite photo ever of a Rock n Roll band. The Beatles writer Mark Lewisohn confirmed the news on Twitter, writing: “Intelligent, inspirational, innovative, daring, artistic, awake, aware, beautiful, smart, loving and uplifting friend to many. Astrid Kirchherr, the photographer whose shots of the Beatles helped turn them into icons, has died aged 81. So when the boys saw Klaus, Stuart was the first one who said, ‘Oh, I would like to have that hairstyle.’ And because their hair was very long I could do it in one night … which I did. He was, and still is, the love of my life. The original five members.”Kirchherr was also the apparent source of at least some of the signature outfit that came to be associated with the group in the first days of Beatlemania, after they abandoned the leather/greaser look they had when she first photographed them. She and Sutcliffe soon got engaged, but he died in 1962 of a brain haemorrhage aged 21, alongside her in an ambulance.
She said that when Sutcliffe moved in with her and her mother, he started wearing some of her more androgynous clothing, because they were roughly the same height — including a collarless jacket whose style soon became a signature look for the entire group.Brian Epstein made them understand the meaning of polish and panache. Photograph: Max Scheler – K & K/Redferns As the various obituaries that marked her passing testify, Astrid Kirchherr ’s fate was to be forever associated with the Beatles, a group she met almost by accident and whose image she remade so audaciously. “Astrid lost confidence in her work and did little professionally after 1967,” Davies wrote.