Paul McCartney's rediscovered photos show Beatlemania from the inside
CTV
Is there really a new way to look at The Beatles, one of the most filmed and photographed bands in history? Yes, says Britain's National Portrait Gallery, which is providing a fresh perspective with an exhibition of band's-eye-view images that Paul McCartney captured as the group shot to global fame.
Is there really a new way to look at The Beatles, one of the most filmed and photographed bands in history?
Yes, says Britain's National Portrait Gallery, which is providing a fresh perspective with an exhibition of band's-eye-view images that Paul McCartney captured as the group shot to global fame.
Gallery director Nicholas Cullinan said the exhibit, subtitled "Eyes of the Storm," is a chance "to see, for the very first time, Beatlemania from the inside out."
The seed for the exhibit was sown in 2020, that year of lockdown projects, when McCartney dug out 1,000 forgotten photos he'd taken in 1963 and 1964, as the Fab Four went from emerging British celebrities to world megastars. He and his team asked if the National Portrait Gallery was interested in displaying them.
"I think you can probably guess our response," Cullinan said as he introduced the exhibition to journalists in London on Tuesday.
The show includes 250 photos taken in England, France and the United States that illustrate The Beatles' journey from cramped dressing rooms in provincial British theaters to stadium shows and luxury hotels.
"It was a crazy whirlwind that we were living through," McCartney writes in a note present at the start of the exhibit. "We were just wondering at the world, excited about all these little things that were making up our lives."
