Liverpool artist celebrates Ringo Starr with massive mural
by Luke Taylor
July 07, 2022
Liverpool native John Culshaw had always enjoyed art, particularly drawing and painting. He just never considered it a viable career path. “It wasn't really an option,” he says. “To be an artist wasn't an option when I was growing up.”
But just as the Beatles had done in his hometown some 60-odd years prior, Culshaw decided to take a chance on his art. “It got to a point where I thought I'll have a go to see if it works,” he recalls. “If it doesn't work, then I can go back to painting and decorating.”
Four years on, Culshaw is now immersed in a full-time career as a muralist, drawing inspiration from other street artists he admires who “are really pushing the boundaries of realism in the street-art world.” Culshaw has now done murals throughout Liverpool that celebrate various aspects of the city in the North West of England, such as players and managers of Liverpool Football Club and of course, the Beatles.
In March, Culshaw completed a massive mural of Ringo Starr in the Toxteth section of Liverpool. Adorning the side of the Empress Pub is a larger-than-life portrait of the Beatles drummer, enhanced by images that recall Ringo Starr’s music and his membership in the Beatles. Culshaw credits building owner Joe McCarthy for the idea of creating a Ringo mural, adding that the mural was a commissioned piece of art.
What makes the Empress such a notable location for the mural is because a photo of the pub appears on the cover of Ringo’s debut solo album Sentimental Journey, which is no accident because the pub is one street over from where Richard Starkey — later known as Ringo Starr — was born on July 7, 1940, and just a few doors down from his childhood home. “It’s on Admiral Grove, where he grew up,” Culshaw clarifies. “It's just at the bottom of the street. … Originally it was going to be all of the Beatles … but with it being in such a strong Ringo area, [McCarthy] decided to just make it more of a more of a Ringo piece.”
Not that Ringo’s bandmates are being ignored; Culshaw says the Empress itself is being converted to a Beatles-themed hotel, and Culshaw is now busy working on artwork throughout the inside of that hotel, which the Liverpool Echo reports is likely to open later this summer.
For the mural on the exterior of the building, Culshaw thought carefully about the portrait of Ringo that is the centerpiece of the work. He likes to use images that are less well-known; candid images that might not readily appear in magazines and books. “This one was an image that I'd never seen before — until shortly after I painted the mural,” Culshaw chuckles. “I watched the Get Back [documentary] on Disney+, and I think I saw the image on that.
“I thought I was the only person to use this image,” he continues. “It's always the way when you think you've come up with something of your own, you find out someone had done it a year earlier or something.”
Surrounding the portrait of Ringo are nods to “Octopus’s Garden,” the Ringo-penned track that appears on the Abbey Road album, as well as colorful imagery from the 1968 Yellow Submarine animated film.
The mural took Culshaw three weeks to complete, and given its large scale, there was no formal unveiling of the completed work because it wasn’t long before the cat — or at least the octopus — was out of the bag. “Ringo Starr did actually post it on his socials. He posted before it was finished, so I'm not sure if he's seen the finished piece yet!” Culshaw says. “But I've had a lot of messages; I got a message from Paul McCartney's sister, which was nice. There's a lot of people who are very interested in it.
“By the time I finished it, it had gone all around the world before I got a chance to post it myself,” Culshaw laughs. “Everybody'd already seen it!”
Culshaw’s work is becoming more widespread, and it has brought recognition to the artist. The new Ringo Starr mural on The Empress is located along the Beatles tour route, and Culshaw says it has got to the point where not just locals but tourists recognize him. “There's a lot of American people, and they'll stop and already know me name which is strange, and they’ll want to have a picture taken,” he says. “It all seems very foreign to me. It's not something that I'm used to. It feels great, you know? It's a nice feeling. People appreciate what I'm doing. I like it.”
To this day, the Beatles remain a source of civic pride in Liverpool. Coincidentally, a new mural of Prince was unveiled this year in Minneapolis, and Liverpudlians and Minneapolitans share a common trait when it comes to their respective hometown heroes. As Culshaw explains: “I think that in Liverpool, everybody sort of feels like it's a part of them, you know? It's about us. It's one of our own who's done well and sort of took the world by storm. So everybody sort of feels like — not that they own it — but they're part of it, you know? Everybody loves it in the city.
“I'm sure the same way you feel about Prince, you know? It's that type of feeling.”
External Links
John Culshaw - Instagram
The Beatles Story, Liverpool - official site
