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The artwork was bought by a Renfrew priest in the 1970s and is one of 10 pieces that will go under the hammer at auction next month.
Paintings created by late Paisley artist John Byrne – including a rare picture of The Beatles – are set to go under the hammer at auction.
One of the 10 artworks to go on sale will be a painting which was created in 1969 and represents each Beatle seated beside a “spirit animal” while Yoko Ono is seen in a crystal ball held by John Lennon.
It is among early Byrne works which he sold to his local parish priest, Father Tom Jamieson, in Renfrew in the 1970s.
The artwork was created as a study for a larger painting and is estimated to be valued at £10,000 to £15,000. The works will be sold by auction house Lyon & Turnbull live and online on Wednesday, April 2.
Byrne, who was born in Ferguslie Park, became friends with Father Jamieson when the artist and his family lived on Paisley Road, Renfrew, in the late 1960s and early 1970s – bonding over a shared love of music and culture.
The priest bought pieces from Byrne who worked from his studio garage in the back garden. Byrne’s daughter, Celie Byrne, also an artist, spoke of Father Jamieson and George Harrison visiting their house while she and her brother were small.
In an interview filmed for Lyon & Turnbull’s social media platforms, she said: “I remember Father Jamieson from when I was tiny. He would come round to the house quite regularly.
“They would sit and talk about work and he went out to the garage looking at my dad’s artwork and what he was working on. I just remember him being really lovely and I always remember his stripey scarf.”
Art legend Byrne, creator of TV show Tutti Frutti and the play The Slab Boys, died on November 30, 2023, aged 83.
Other works in the sale include the large painting ‘Homage a Hockney’ (1970) which is expected to fetch between £20,000 and £30,000.
The sale also features a piece commissioned by Scottish folk musician Donovan in 1971 for the cover of HMS Donovan, an album of children’s songs. The original oil painting for this is estimated at between £6,000 and £8,000.
All works in the collection of Father Jamieson were produced during Byrne’s “Patrick” era in which the Glasgow School of Art graduate signed the majority of his work with his father’s first name, and pretended to be a “primitive” self-taught artist to attract the interest of the London art world.
Charlotte Riordan, Lyon & Turnbull’s head of contemporary and post-war art, said: “This is an amazing collection of John Byrne’s work.
“Father Jamieson clearly had a keen eye for artistic talent, seeing great promise in a man who would go on to make his own distinctive and indelible mark on Scottish, and indeed British, cultural life.
“The Beatles painting was a precursor to a larger version, created for his 1969 December show at London’s Portal Gallery.
“The painting was purchased by the art director and graphic designer Alan Aldridge, who went on to use it as the frontispiece to The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics, published in 1969. It was later used as the cover of The Beatles Ballads LP 12 years later.
“Rumours suggest the original large-scale work was lost by EMI records, and so this work being offered for sale by Lyon & Turnbull is a rare surviving early version.
“There is only one other known example, in a private collection in America. We anticipate a great deal of interest in the sale and look forward to some spirited bidding at home and abroad.”
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