Beatles graphic designer Klaus Voormann designs a label for a Mecklenburg winery

Rattey Castle is dedicating a solo exhibition to the two-time Grammy Award winner

Report by Stefan Schmidt

There are certainly plenty of reasons to dedicate an exhibition to the graphic designer and musician Klaus Voormann. Born in Berlin in 1938, the artist not only designed the legendary cover of the Beatles„ album *Revolver*, which was released 60 years ago. His design, for which he received a fee of just 50 pounds, was awarded the Grammy Award for Best Album Cover in 1967.

The Fab Four’s „Anthology“ trilogy, released between 1995 and 2003, was yet another masterpiece from his studio. He has produced more than a hundred albums for artists such as Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Manfred Mann, Heinz Rudolf Kunze, Marius Müller-Westernhagen, Foolsgarden and Fatoni were all created by him. His most recent work was released in April 2026 for the album ‘Kaleidoscope’ by the Austropop band Bruther.

Until 1979, Klaus Voormann lived mainly in the UK and the US, making a name for himself as a bass guitarist and studio musician. He won his second Grammy for his performance at the legendary „Concert for Bangladesh“ alongside George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr and Eric Clapton. He was a member of Manfred Mann and John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band, and played with many other greats of rock and pop.

In the late 1950s, he studied graphic art and design in Berlin and Hamburg. It was in Hamburg that he met the Beatles, when they were still unknown and penniless. Many of his lithographs and prints depict the musicians in the context of life in the Hanseatic city at that time. Based on his autobiography, the BBC, in collaboration with ZDF, is currently filming the six-part series „Hamburg Days“.

Prints, lithographs, sketches and oil paintings form part of the wide-ranging repertoire of this still very active artist, to whom a solo exhibition at Rattey Castle is being dedicated for the first time in eastern Germany. In the run-up to the exhibition, the down-to-earth and energetic Voormann has taken on the design of a wine label for the first time.

He designed a label for the 2025 Solaris from the Mecklenburg winery Schloß Rattey, which won a gold medal at the 2026 PIWI Wine Challenge in Valtice, the Czech Republic. The wine, „Guttae Solaris – Klaus Voormann Edition“, was presented to the general public on 31 July 2026 at the opening of the exhibition at the Rossmühle at Schloß Rattey. A matching gift box and a certificate are, of course, included with this limited edition of 1,000 bottles.

Contact:
Stefan Schmidt, Estate Manager at Schloß Rattey
Email: s.schmidt@schlossrattey.de
Tel.: +49 175 2299992