Spencer Zahn's Grand Hotel artwork

The 'Thin End of the Wedge' illustration

To own this utterly unique item, place your eBay bid before Sunday 5 June 2005

This piece of original artwork by renowned designer Spencer Zahn has been offered for auction by Gary Brooker, the sale proceeds to go to the BJ Wilson Memorial Fund, and to continue the running of 'Beyond the Pale', the Procol Harum website.

The dimensions of the picture, measured by Gary himself, are 748 x 740 mm. The artwork has been executed in charcoal on Rives BFK Elephant double weight paper. It has been fixed to prevent smudging.

This picture didn't appear in the Grand Hotel booklet, because the song was not used on the album: it surfaced on Procol's next recording, of course. The piece is consequently a real rarity.

We took two sets of photographs of the Grand Hotel originals: the first set was taken out of doors at the Brooker residence on 26 October 2004; the second set was taken indoors in Bristol on 8 November, with the addition of items to show the scale of the pictures: a yardstick and an apple.

The first set rather over-emphasises the slightly yellow tinge of the art paper; the second set has a blue tinge reflected from the cloth the pictures are propped against. Click on the images to see them in detail.