George Harrison

Photographs by Barry Feinstein

George Harrison released All Things Must Pass on  27 November 1970. Unusually for the time, it was a triple album. George Harrison, always good with a wry turn of phrase, apparently explained it like this: “I didn’t have many tunes on Beatles records, so doing an album like All Things Must Pass was like going to the bathroom and letting it out.”

US photographer Barry Feinstein (1931-2011) took the well-known photograph of George that appeared on the album sleeve.  His photograph of George indoors was used on the poster that accompanied early pressings of the record. 

On the front cover, a long-haired and bearded George Harrison is captured by Barry Feinstein in his garden at Friar Park, near Henley on Thames. He is sitting on a stool, wearing a camo-effect floppy hat and wellington boots, and around him on the grass are four reclining garden gnomes. It is a surreal scene—a man at one with nature, as far from the image of ‘Beatle-George’ as is possible to get—and the gnomes are a reminder of George’s playful side, a tongue-in-cheek touch.   

Barry Feinstein is probably best known for his photographs of Bob Dylan—most famously the 1966 tour in the UK and Europe. In the late 60s Barry Feinstein and his business partner Tom Wilkes ran Camouflage Productions, a photography and design business specialising in album covers. Barry started working with George Harrison around this time. All Things Must Pass was Barry’s first assignment with George, but he went on to photograph him for his next two albums, The Concert for Bangladesh and Living in the Material World.