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The artist who found himself rolling in cash
February 23 2003
By Larry Schwartz
Ian McCausland was taken aback 30 years ago when a postman made his way through long grass to his "hippie pad" in North Road, Brighton, to deliver a telegram summoning him to Sydney at the request of the Rolling Stones' Keith Richards.
The Melbourne artist had designed posters for the band's 1973 tour of Australia and New Zealand and had met the guitarist days earlier at the Montsalvat artists' colony at Eltham.
Picture: CRAIG SILLITOE
Artist Ian McCausland remembers "hanging out" with a rock legend.
In Sydney, he spent two days with the band.
"Without telling tales out of school, I spent almost a complete day with Keith Richards. Just hanging out in his room," he said.
"The door was constantly being quietly knocked. The minder would open the door and usher somebody in. They would say, 'Ah man, I've been hanging on to this ever since I knew you guys were coming here. It's a gift from me.' And hand over a plastic bag of something."
Now 59, McCausland remembers when households were divided between Beatles and Stones fans. He has remained firmly in the latter camp.
When he was approached to do the Stones poster in 1972, he was asked for little more than to incorporate the band's logo, with Mick Jagger's pouting lips and tongue.
So impressed were they with a draft of a jet flying into the caricature of Jagger's mouth against the backdrop of the Australian continent that they asked him to do another for the New Zealand leg of the tour.
Drummer Charlie Watts also suggested he design the cover of their next album, Goat's Head Soup.
McCausland says he was paid $600 for each of the posters, with a $600 advance for the album cover. "I felt like a millionaire," he says. He used the money as a deposit on his first home in Upper Ferntree Gully. "It was the most money I'd ever made as an artist."
He mailed his design to their London office but is not sure it ever reached the band. In "those naive days", he says, he didn't keep a copy. "I have never found out what happened to it. It just disappeared somewhere." |
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| Stones Age |
Great story Bill. Shame the Stones weren't so enthusiastic when I approached Keith re. a bust for a sculptor who did all the bronze casting in the New York Hard Rock Cafe on Mick Jagger a few years back. Quite short was Keef in his response and seemed to prefer Victor Kruger cartoons which are gloriously grotesque! Still it depends what grabs their attention I guess at the time. 'Impress me', a bit like Queen Victoria, or deity.. |
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