Painter transformed John Lennon's death into powerful works of art

Many Americans learned that John Lennon had been shot when Sportcaster Howard Cosell broke during one Monday evening football Radiation on December 8, 1980. But the painter Robert Morgan knew much earlier. He heard the shots in front of his apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side shortly before 11 p.m. that night. After walking to his window, he rushed down and saw how his famous neighbor spread on the sidewalk.

Morgan felt that he was experiencing history and instinctively grabbed his camera. When his finger hovered over the closure, he stopped.

Morgan tells his story in the new documentary Borrowed time: Lennon's last decadeWhat in British cinemas and on the Icon film channel on May 2, directed by Alan G. Parker – who previously treated the Beatles in the documentary 2017 It was fifty years ago … Sgt. Pepper and beyond -The film captures the flood of activity in Lennon's last months when he emerged from his self -imposed exile from the music industry and returned to the recording studio.

Time borrowedNamed after one of the last songs that the rock legend would ever record, details sessions for Lennon's comeback album, Double imaginationAs well as plans for a planned world tour – his first since his days in the Beatles. Parker interviews Set designer and lighting technician who describes innovative stage production that Lennon in mind had one that (in Lennon's words) “Give Mick [Jagger] and Elton [John] f — ing ulcers! “The elaborate plans are a moving look at a future that would never be.

On the evening of December 8, 1980, Morgan was in the 11:00 am. His apartment building in the 72nd street was located directly opposite Lennon's house in the commanding Gothic complex, which is known as a dakota. “Everyone knew that he lived there, and there were millions of fans who would only pass John,” recalls Morgan, who shared a friend with a nodding acquaintance with him and his wife Yoko Ono. “He shook his hand to people and said hello.”

Both buildings overlook a busy intersection, and the noise was common. So the sound of shots in the early 80s was New York. But that night the booms, which re -pounded in the entire courtyard of Dakota – and scary nearby – sounded that Morgan initially believed that he had heard a car accident. Sirens followed a few moments later.

“I went to the window where I could see both the 72nd and Central Park West,” he says in the film. “I realized that it was John Lennon. The limousine was there and the back door was open and John was lying on the sidewalk. And I immediately noticed that it was John because of the glasses [reflecting the entrance lights] And … because he was on cowboy boots. ”

Morgan watched the chaos below unfold 12 floors. The police started gathering and they arrested the shooter. Morgan was not sure what else to do and reached for the camera on his nearby desk, a Nikkormat el with a telephoto lens with which he often held the street or the view outside of his window. Now he focused on Lennon, one of the most photographed characters in the world. But when Morgan looked through the lens, he saw no beatle – he saw the face of a dying man.

“It was literally painful. I thought: 'I'm not a photojournalist.' I just didn't have this type of blooddatms.

Morgan recognized the importance of the moment and used his talents to remind the scene for posterity. “I didn't take the photo, but I am a painter – I know how to draw. It should somehow be documented. I couldn't help John – I was on the 12th floor. So I immediately decided to sketch what happened.”

Morgan finally developed the sketch into a full oil painting of 12 x 16 inches, in which Lennon was brought to the nearby Roosevelt Hospital. His condition was grave and there was no time to wait for an ambulance. “The painting shows everything,” he says. “There were two or three police officers who led the traffic, and five of them pushed it into the back of a police car.”

Morgan watched when she raced towards Roosevelt, which was 13 blocks south. Lennon didn't breathe when she arrived and he had no pulse. 20 minutes later he was declared dead. Although Morgan had taken from a photo, there would be a final picture of Lennon: a corpse dealer crept in a photo of him into a corpse bag and sold it to the boulevard newspaper for 10,000 US dollars.

Morgan, who is now based in Venice, continues to work as a painter. But none of his works are as urgent as his portrayal of the 72nd street and the Central Park West in this cold December night 45 years ago when he looked the story from his living room window. “To shoot from all people in the world,” he asks himself Time borrowed“Why choose John Lennon?”