McCartney donates pictures to the V&A

Sir Paul McCartney has made a “major gift” of more than 60 photographs taken by his late wife Linda to the Victoria & Albert museum (V&A).

The images feature music stars and “tender family” moments.

A selection of the 63 photographs will go on display at the V&A’s new Photography Centre, which opens in October.

The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix are pictured, as well as flora and fauna, and intimate personal portraits of the McCartney family on holiday.

Linda became a professional photographer in the mid-1960s.

The V&A’s senior curator of photographs, Martin Barnes, said Sir Paul wanted to make some of his first wife’s pictures “more accessible to the public”.

“Placing them in a freely accessible collection like the V&A enables that to happen and allows the work of Linda McCartney to be seen within a much broader context, of a wide history of photography, rather than isolated in that kind of story of rock and pop and the McCartney story,” he said.

“When you look at a whole range of photographs she keeps experimenting with different styles, different camera types, different printing types.

“She’s very interested in unguarded moments and intimate moments, unstaged moments, with her family.

“But she brings that approach to the world of celebrity and rock and pop as well...

“She had a real eye for a moment.

“She stepped back a little bit more from the staging.

“She was able to capture things that felt more honest and more real.”

Picture: PA. Paul McCartney with daughter Mary.