If you come across the SLC Pepper mural in Salt Lake City, Utah, you might just think it’s a knock off of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover. But what you might not know from first glance is that this street art was actually created by Jann Haworth, one of the original artists behind the source.
Jann Haworth, an artist associated with the 1960s Pop Art Movement in Great Britain, co-designed the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with her then husband Peter Blake in 1967. Nearly 40 years later, in 2004, Haworth began work on this updated version in Salt Lake City.
The mural, created by Haworth and over 30 other contributing artists, spans 50-feet by 30 feet on the side of a building roped off by a chainlink fence. Though similar in look and feel, the most notable difference between Haworth’s mural and the original Beatles album is a more balanced crowd, with the introduction of more women and people of various ethnicities.
According to Wikipedia, there are more than 100 people represtended in the outdoor artwork, including the following: Adbusters, Akira Kurosawa, Alice, Alice Walker, Annie Lennox, Banksy’s Rat, B.B. King, Beastie Boys, Benicio del Toro, Billie Holiday, Björk, Bob Marley, César Chávez, Charlize Theron, Cindy Sherman, Dalai Lama, David Bowie, David Hockney, Ellen DeGeneres, Erykah Badu, Eudora Welty, Enid (Thora Birch), Eve Ensler, Felix the Cat, Frank Zappa, Frida Kahlo, Garrison Keillor, Gandhi, Mikhail Gorbachev, Gore Vidal, Guerrilla Girls, Harvey Pekar, Hedwig, Howard Zinn, Jackie Robinson, Jane Goodall, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jeff Bridges, Katharine Hepburn, Laurie Anderson, Lee Krasner, Louise Brooks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Maya Angelou, Maya Lin, Miles Davis, Mother Jones, Muddy Waters, Nelson Mandela, Pablo Picasso, Peter Gabriel, Robert Rauschenberg, Ray Charles, Richard Feynman, Rosa Parks, Samuel Beckett, Sylvia Plath, Sojourner Truth, Terry Gilliam, Tom Waits, Thom Yorke, Toni Morrison, and Tony Kushner.
While wandering Salt Lake City and checking out roadside attractions in Utah, be sure to also check out the Constellation Owl Mural, the Book Wall Mural, and the Salt Lake City Mural.
SLC Pepper Mural in Salt Lake City, Utah
Address: 250 South 400 West, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Cost: Free to See
Hours: Always Visible (though, through a fence)
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