Missing John Lennon psychedelic eye mosaic reunited with owners

by John Sutton, Liverpool Echo
July 14, 2011




A mosaic designed by John Lennon was reunited with its owners after being lost for more than two decades.

There are now hopes the Psychedelic Eye will return to the Beatle’s home city of Liverpool, from where it went missing in 1987.

The custom-made piece, which is constructed from more than 17,500 ceramic tiles each no bigger than a quarter of an inch square, was originally installed at the end of Lennon’s swimming pool in his mansion at Kenwood, Surrey, where the hits Yellow Submarine and Hey Jude were composed.

Lennon sold the house in 1968, and in 1982 it was sold to an anonymous Swedish businessman.

He, his wife and their music and television producer friend Bernie Cochrane, who bought half of the mosaic, decided it should be put on public display and sent it to the Liverpool’s international garden festival in 1985.

When the garden festival closed in 1987, arrangements were made to transfer it to the Alder Hey children’s hospital.

But the Psychedelic Eye never arrived.