Centenary College’s Meadows Museum of Art will open a Beatles exhibition Saturday featuring illustrations by Enoch Doyle Jeter.
Jeter is artist-in-residence at the University of Louisiana at Monroe’s School of Visual and Performing Arts.
The 14 prints interpret every song on the “With the Beatles” album. They’re featured in the new John Lennon biography “She Loves You.” Jeter says he was given a lot of latitude by the author, Jude Southerland Kessler.
“My job was to illustrate visually the songs by the Beatles on that album ‘With the Beatles.’ For instance, you’ll see illustrations for ‘She’s Got the Devil in Her Heart’ and ‘Roll over Beethoven.’ I had to use my imagination and come up with some quirky little fun ideas,” Jeter said.
Jeter, 61, says he’s been listening to the Beatles forever. He tried not to listen to the “With the Beatles” album but a couple times so he could bring a fresh perspective to the artwork. For more than a year, the printmaking instructor collected images to inspire his drawings.
“I created little collages, literally, out of the photographs, taped them together, and I worked from those photos and drew on lithographic stone,” Jeter said.
Half a century has passed since the Beatles' first American performance on "The Ed Sullivan Show." Jeter has had a busy year of touring with the illustrations, and he hopes to have them exhibited in Ireland next year.
Jeter will host an artist’s talk Saturday, Sept. 13 from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. Musician Kenny Bill Stinson of West Monroe will perform Beatles songs. In 2007, Stinson performed on the same piano used by John Lennon to compose the song “Imagine.”
Author Jude Southerland Kessler will be at the Meadows Museum for a talk on Oct. 3, at 7 p.m. She will perform “Lennon’s Liverpool” at Meadows Museum.
The “With the Beatles” exhibition runs through Oct. 25.
