Photograph of Freddie Mercury with an Acoustic Guitar

Description

Photograph of Freddie Mercury with an Acoustic Guitar

The story behind this Paul Humberstone photograph:

When Queen hit the big time, Freddie Mercury could afford to live anywhere in the world. The place he chose was Kensington, an exclusive area of London, near to where he hung out in his college days. His final address was a grand detached house in Logan place, W8. Before that he had stayed at many different addresses in the area including Holland Road, Stafford Terrace and, when he first joined Queen, Addison Gardens and Sinclair Gardens W14.

Addison Gardens & Sinclair Gardens are on adjoining streets in West Kensington near to Shepherd’s Bush and less than five minutes from Logan place. Freddie’s friends Chris Smith and Paul Humberston rented the basement flat at 42b Addison Gardens.

Freddie didn’t pay rent, but he spent a lot of time at Addison Gardens, hanging out with Chris and Tim and their circle of friends. This included Brian May and Roger Taylor the other half of the band Smile. Roger shared a flat in Sinclair Gardens whereas Brian lived with his parents in Hampton, Richmond upon Thames. When they all got together Chris Smith said Brian would stay at Roger’s while Tim and Freddie would stay with Chris.

Paul Humberston’s photograph is a marvellous record of the West Kensington days. There is a practice session with Brian and Tim at Roger’s flat share in Sinclair Gardens and the earliest ever pictures of Freddie playing the guitar. “He was unsure of his ability”, remembers Chris Smith about this photograph.

In the background of the posters on the wall are Family’s ‘Family Entertainment’ to promote the LP, a psychedelic George Harrison by Richard Avedon and the Indian deities Radha and Krishna.

(Source: Queen on Camera Off Guard by Mark Hayward)

This photograph features on page 30 of Mark Hayward’s excellent book ‘Queen on camera, off guard’

This photo also featured in the Queen documentary ‘Queen: A Night At The Odeon’ screened on Friday April 3rd 2020 on Channel 5 in the U.K.

This is a limited edition photograph printed from original 1969 negatives owned by Mark Hayward. It is number 1 of 10. There are only 10 copies in this size.

Mounted in a high quality, handmade, black frame with UV glass. The UV glass offers protection for the photograph long term. However for further protection please keep the photograph out of direct sunlight.

Approx dimensions:
Frame outer H 22cm W 18cm
Photo H 13cm W 9cm

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