A horde of “never-before-seen” photos taken by Paul McCartney at the height of Beatlemania will go on show at the refurbished National Portrait Gallery this summer.
Drawn from McCartney’s own archive, ‘Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm’ will exhibit snaps he took between December 1963 and February 1964, just as The Beatles were breaking the US.
The start of Beatlemania
The exhibition begins on 28 June 2023, the week after the National Portrait Gallery reopens, and will end on 1 October 2023.
It promises to give a “uniquely personal and never-before-seen perspective on what it was like to be a ‘Beatle’ at the start of ‘Beatlemania’.”
‘It’s what makes life great’
McCartney will also publish a book of the same name featuring the 275 photographs on 13 June.
Taken on a 35mm camera in London, Liverpool, New York, Miami, Washington and Paris, the trove of images was rediscovered in McCartney’s archive in 2020.
“To look at the love and the wonder of what we went through that’s captured in a lot of these photographs is the whole thing. It’s what makes life great,” McCartney said.
Ed Sullivan Show success
In November 1963, the Fab Four released their second album With the Beatles and by early 1964 were preparing to record A Hard Day’s Night. Just a year before they had scored their first chart topper with Please, Please Me.
The three-month period includes their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964, which was seen by a record-breaking 73 million viewers and launched American Beatlemania. They also undertook a residency at the Paris Olympia a month earlier.
The National Portrait Gallery has been closed since June 2020 but will open its doors again on 22 June following the completion of essential building works.
“At a time when so many camera lenses were on the band, these photographs will share fresh insight into their experiences, their fans and the early 1960s, all through eyes of Paul McCartney,” the National Portrait Gallery stated.
