Unused Polaroids of John Lennon Taken by Andy Warhol for the Album Cover of ‘Imagine’ (1971)

These Polaroids were taken by Andy Warhol during a session at John Lennon’s Tittenhurst Park home in 1971, and were originally intended as the album cover artwork for his second solo album Imagine. Of the four prints, two are close-ups of Lennon wearing his trademark round glasses looking straight to camera, other two are side-on shots. The Yoko photos used for the album were remarkably similar to the ones taken by the celebrated pop artist.

The Making of Imagine documentary even features scenes of John, Andy, Yoko and others sat discussing the images and how they will be used. However, the photos were eventually replaced on the sleeve by a Polaroid photograph of Lennon taken by Yoko Ono, featuring a double exposure over a painting of clouds by Geoffrey Hendricks.

The four Warhol photographs have remained unpublished for almost 50 years, and sold by Omega Auctions of Merseyside in 2019.

Front and back cover art by Yoko Ono for Imagine.

Unused and previously unseen photographic proofs of Imagine front cover artwork by Yoko Ono, July 1971.

This is the front cover for the LP Imagine by John Lennon. The cover art copyright is believed to belong to Yoko Ono.