The Daily Telegraph - Features
The Beatles’ rise, through a (blurred) lens
Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm
National Portrait Gallery, London WC2 ★★★★★
When the National Portrait Gallery was founded in London in 1856, it was advertised as a repository for “portraits of the most eminent persons in British history”, and a version of that mission statement can still be found on the gallery’s website. Well, then, what better subject for its main exhibition after a three-year closure and £41million revamp than The Beatles?
Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm gathers more than 250 images captured by the “Cute One” between November 1963 and February 1964. McCartney used his Pentax to snap away as the band travelled from Liverpool to London to Paris, and then on to their first US tour: New York, Washington DC, Miami. The photos – shot backstage, in recording studios, on the road and airport Tarmac – show the other Beatles and their entourage as well as the hordes of press and adoring fans. There are some arty landscapes, and McCartney himself appears on occasion too, when other people picked up his camera. Everything is black-andwhite, until an explosion of colour comes when McCartney switches the film in Miami.
The negatives and contact sheets lay in McCartney’s archive for decades, until their rediscovery during preparations for a 2020 show of his late wife Linda’s photography. He had a close hand in the selection and curation of this display, which follows a sensible chronological route and is nicely hung.
But he did well to stick to the day (and night) job: although there are some fantastic individual shots – George Harrison wearing two sequin-trimmed hats is among my picks – many others are less memorable. The exhibition opens with a pair of self-portraits
Who else could have got a shot of John Lennon grinning goofily in a pool in Miami?
in a mirror that are hopelessly out of focus: a recurring problem. To his credit, McCartney admits as much in the catalogue: “I could say, ‘Well I wish I’d taken a bit more time to focus [the photos] up.’ But we didn’t have the time.”
Of course, that’s not the point of this show, organised by an institution that has always prioritised celebrity over art. McCartney’s images might be blurry, but what they do offer us – which few others could – is an unguarded view of life as a newly minted international superstar. Other people and places are glimpsed, more often than not, through the window of a chauffeured car or plane. And through it all, The Beatles keep working – and playing.
Who else could have got a shot of Ringo Starr looking bored and weary, backstage before a show in Liverpool? Or of John Lennon grinning goofily, arms outstretched and mop-top slick with water, in a pool in Miami? Somehow, the ordinariness of these photographs is also the most remarkable thing about them.
From tomorrow until Oct 1; npg.org.uk