A collection of photographs taken by Paul McCartney when the Beatles were on the brink of global stardom are to be shown in an exhibition that sheds light on intimate moments as the group first experienced fame.
Rearview Mirror: Liverpool-London-Paris, which opens at the Gagosian in London on 28 August, features 18 shots taken by the singer-songwriter during late 1963 after the release of the Beatles’ first album, and early 1964 as they travelled to the US.
Joshua Chuang, the Gagosian’s director of photography, said the images captured the Beatles before the all-consuming fame of a few months later. “When Paul is most prolific when using his camera parallels the time in which they actually had time. When they weren’t so overwhelmed by being so overexposed and in demand,” Chuang said.
“It was a really precious few months in which they’re realising who they are, who they are to other people, and want to participate in that image formation.”
The Beatles released their first two albums in 1963: Please Please Me and With the Beatles, which catapulted them into the limelight, powered by what the Guardian called “a different and heavily northern-flavoured sound of their own”.
The band followed that up in 1964 with singles including A Hard Day’s Night and two more albums that helped them break America and become a global phenomenon.
In autumn 1963, McCartney decided to pick up a camera, long before he and the group became some of the most photographed people on the planet. He bought a simple Pentax and used mostly black and white Kodak and Ilford film, and took a small selection of colour images in early 1964.
“I think they knew that history was happening,” said Chuang. “They wanted to capture it, and do it themselves. They picked a camera for the same reason anyone does, to have your own view.”
The colour shots mostly capture the frantic first steps into the world of American light entertainment, with behind-the-scenes rehearsal shots at The Ed Sullivan Show and relaxed poolside moments before they played live for Sullivan at Miami Beach.
McCartney also snaps fans as they wait outside hotels and captures stills of paparazzi swarming around the band. There are also more reflective self-portraits taken before live shows and interviews. One of the self-portraits is taken in the attic of McCartney’s then girlfriend, the actor Jane Asher, which is where he wrote the melody for Yesterday.
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Chuang said: “When life is happening so quickly and changing so quickly, you don’t often have a chance to stop and look at yourself in the mirror. And I really think that’s exactly what he’s doing: looking at himself in the near and wanting to crystallise that moment, not knowing what was going to happen next.”
The images cover the era when the band were well known in the UK but could still get the cold shoulder when they ventured abroad. McCartney’s photos from Paris hint at a less-than-rapturous response in the French capital. He captures the modest crowds outside the Olympia – where they had a three-week run – and a stroll down the Champs-Élysées where John Lennon could still walk freely.
Some of the images were shown in 2023 at Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm, an exhibition of the photos he rediscovered during the pandemic.