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A moody, leather-jacketed John Lennon in close-up at the Hamburg Fun Fair. The Fab Four gathered in the claustrophobic cellar of The Cavern Club. A Pete Best-era shot of The Beatles at the Hugo Hasse Hannover Fairground.
  
They’re some of the most iconic images of the Beatles’ early days, before immense fame and hysterical Beatlemania made the band a household name.
  
Astrid Kirchherr’s Hamburg images of The Beatles have passed into rock’n’roll photography folklore (her relationship with the band, and Stu Sutcliffe in particular, was documented in Iain Softley’s 1994 film Backbeat), as have the energetic, evocative photographs by Dezo Hoffman, the band’s first official photographer.
  
Kirchherr and Hoffman’s stunning black-and-white images are now on show at LK Galleries in Subiaco as part of a touring exhibition curated by Colin Kaye, of Silver K Fine Art in Melbourne. It’s a chance for Beatles aficionados to get a onestop fix of quality rock’n’roll photography (Hoffman’s early photographs of The Rolling Stones and a baby-faced Mick Jagger are also on display, with all prints for sale).
  
The exhibition contains 11 hand-signed Astrid Kirchherr originals and more than 40 of Hoffman’s Beatles pictures, ranging from one-on-one portraits, studio and rehearsal shots to images of the band in concert, at press conferences and on the Ed Sullivan show.
  
While most of Hoffman’s photographs date from the first half of the 60s, the exhibition also includes a selection of Paul Saltzmann pictures from the band’s visit to Rishikesh in India in 1968, a handful of Robert Freeman photographs of John Lennon at home in Weybridge in 1965 and some limited-edition cells from the animated 1968 feature Yellow Submarine.
  
One of the exhibition’s many highlights is a rarely seen Hoffman photograph of the Fab Four standing side by side in a deserted Rupert Court, Soho, in July 1963. Of particular note is the Striptease sign hanging over the head of a fresh-faced George Harrison. (It’s no longer there — Kaye made a point of visiting Rupert Court during a London sojourn to see for himself.) It makes an interesting contrast, given the band’s squeaky-clean image in the first half of the 60s.
  
“This is one of many photos that, six months later, Hoffman probably wouldn’t have been able to take,” Kaye says.
  
“It was still early enough for him to take the band outdoors — there’s another shot of the band taken in a park on the same day — and be able to photograph them without the whole lot of them getting mobbed.”

Images of the Beatles: The Art of Rock’n’Roll is at LK Galleries, 123 Hay Street, Subiaco, until October 29.

Pip Christmass