Paul McCartney Photographs 1963–64: Eyes of the Storm

Charming exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of photographs by Paul McCartney taken at the height of Beatlemania.

The photographs captured a moment in time and showed what it was like to be a young men in the midst of this fame. They documented the time from a concert in Cheltenham to a few days break in Miami.

The pictures were of mixed quality but reflect a young man trying out his first camera and looking at the world in a new way. I loved the fact the images were shown as taken and not cropped for effect.

When the pictures were good they were astonishing. I thought this picture of the beach in Miami, presumably from a hotel window, was fantastic and some of the portraits captured the Fab Four and those around them as the young men they were not the phenomenon we now view them as.

Closes 1 October 2023


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