When The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967, they didn’t just change how albums sounded—they changed how they looked. Created by artists Peter Blake and Jann Haworth, the cover was a pop-culture explosion in cardboard form. A band within a band, surrounded by an audience of legends, eccentrics, philosophers, and icons, all packed into one technicolor moment that’s still studied, debated, and loved today.
The vision was simple: a new band posing after a concert, with fans—real, fictional, dead, or alive—cheering them on. Blake and Haworth turned that concept into history, with life-sized cutouts of everyone from spiritual gurus to Hollywood stars. And, yes, Adolf Hitler and Jesus Christ were both modeled but ultimately left out.
Sri Yukteswar Giri
Aleister Crowley
Mae West
Lenny Bruce
Karlheinz Stockhausen
W.C. Fields
Carl Jung
Edgar Allan Poe
Fred Astaire
Richard Merkin
The Vargas Girl
Leo Gorcey (removed)
Huntz Hall
Simon Rodia
Bob Dylan
Aubrey Beardsley
Sir Robert Peel
Aldous Huxley
Dylan Thomas
Terry Southern
Dion DiMucci
Tony Curtis
Wallace Berman
Tommy Handley
Marilyn Monroe
William S. Burroughs
Sri Mahavatar Babaji
Stan Laurel
Richard Lindner
Oliver Hardy
Karl Marx
H.G. Wells
Sri Paramahansa Yogananda
James Joyce
Stuart Sutcliffe
Max Miller
George Petty’s Petty Girl
Marlon Brando
Tom Mix
Oscar Wilde
Tyrone Power
Larry Bell
David Livingstone
Johnny Weissmuller
Stephen Crane
Issy Bonn
George Bernard Shaw
H.C. Westermann
Albert Stubbins
Sri Lahiri Mahasaya
Lewis Carroll
T.E. Lawrence
Sonny Liston (wax model)
George Harrison (wax model)
John Lennon (wax model)
Ringo Starr (wax model)
Paul McCartney (wax model)
Shirley Temple (appears three times)
Diana Dors (wax model)
Albert Einstein
Bette Davis
Bobby Breen
Marlene Dietrich
American Legionnaire
Mahatma Gandhi (removed)
Adolf Hitler (removed)
Sophia Loren (obscured)
Marcello Mastroianni (obscured)
Timothy Carey (obscured)
Unidentified laughing figure
Jesus Christ (not modeled)
Objects and Props:
Hookah (water pipe)
Fukusuke figure (symbol of good luck)
Stone figure of Snow White
Baritone horn
Drumhead by Joe Ephgrave
Idol of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi
Trophy
Antique stone bust of a Victorian man
9-inch Sony television set
Stone figure of a girl
Cloth doll of Shirley Temple wearing “Welcome The Rolling Stones Good Guys” sweater
Three-stringed flower guitar
Stone figure
Garden gnome
Cloth snake
Flowers
The Beatles’ Instruments:
John Lennon – French horn
Paul McCartney – Cor anglais
George Harrison – Piccolo
Ringo Starr – Trumpet
Removed Or Hidden Figures:
Leo Gorcey
Adolf Hitler
Sophia Loren
Marcello Mastroianni
Timothy Carey
Mahatma Gandhi
Jesus Christ
Unidentified laughing figure
Every name. Every face. Every object. The world’s most iconic album cover remains a living collage of music, art, and imagination.