Fender Stratocaster Fragments Smashed by Jimi Hendrix at The Saville Theatre, London, England, June 4, 1967

Jimi Hendrix smashed this painted Fender Stratocaster guitar on June 4, 1967, to commemorate his final show in London, before leaving England to play at the Monterey Pop Festival two weeks later. On the back of the guitar he painted a poem that incorporates the lyrics to his song “Love or Confusion”, along with an allusion to his guitar as a loving sacrifice. 

Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970) was an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter who gained mainstream prominence in the late 1960s with hits such as “Hey Joe,” “Purple Haze,” “All Along the Watchtower,” and “Fire,” and is now celebrated as one of the most influential electric guitarists of all time. 

He started off the legendary evening set with a rendition of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” to acknowledge the Beatles’ album debuting at No. 1 three days earlier. For the last song, “Are You Experienced?,” Hendrix took this guitar from backstage that he had painted that day and at the end of the song smashed it. The two pieces on display here are all that remain: an instrument, an art piece, a sacrifice. 

According to Hugh Nolan, writing in the June 10, 1967 issue of Disc and Music Echo, “Then, to a smashing, ear-splitting “Are You Experienced?” Jimi was handed a guitar from the wings—a guitar he’d painted in glorious swirling colours and written a poem on the back dedicated to Britain and its audiences—and, bathed in a flickering strobe light, crashed the guitar about the stage and hurled what was left of it to eager souvenir-hunters in the audience.”