Stuart Fergusson Victor Sutcliffe (23 June 1940 – 10 April 1962) was a Scottish painter and musician best known as the original bass guitarist of the English rock band the Beatles. Sutcliffe left the band to pursue his career as a painter, having previously attended the Liverpool College of Art. Sutcliffe and John Lennon are credited with inventing the name "Beetles" (sic), as they both liked Buddy Holly's band, the Crickets. They also had a fascination of group names with double meanings (as Crickets, for example, the word referring to both an insect as well as a sport), so Lennon then came up with "The Beatles", from the word beat (though Lennon's original spelling was "Beatals"). As a member of the group when it was a five-piece band, Sutcliffe is one of several people sometimes referred to as the "Fifth Beatle".
When he performed with the Beatles in Hamburg, he met photographer Astrid Kirchherr, to whom he was later engaged. After leaving the Beatles, he enrolled in the Hamburg College of Art, studying under future pop artist Eduardo Paolozzi, who later wrote a report stating that Sutcliffe was one of his best students. Sutcliffe earned other praise for his paintings, which mostly explored a style related to abstract expressionism.
While studying in West Germany, Sutcliffe began suffering from intense headaches and experiencing acute light sensitivity. In February 1962, he collapsed in the middle of an art class after complaining of head pains. German doctors performed tests, but were unable to determine what was causing the headaches. After collapsing again on 10 April 1962, he was taken to hospital, but died in the ambulance on the way there. The cause of death was later found to have been a brain haemorrhage – severe bleeding in the right ventricle of his brain.
Last Updated: October 8, 2022
