Hello hello: Mccartney portraits go on show
Paul and Linda were regularly visitors to Kintyre farmhouse retreat
Intimate family portraits captured at the Argyll home of former Beatle Paul Mccartney’s home during the 1960s and 1970s are to go on display in Scotland for the first time.
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow has secured a major exhibition drawn from the extensive archives amassed by the late Linda Mccartney, the American photographer and musician who married the charttopping star in 1969.
Due to open next July, the six-month exhibition will also feature images of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, which were taken by Mccartney, who died in 1998 after a battle with breast cancer.
The exhibition, put together by Sir Paul and the couple’s children Stella and Mary, has never been seen in the UK.
It will include a number of images taken at the family home at High Park Farm in Campbeltown, which Mccartney bought to try to protect his earnings from the taxman.
The Mccartneys retreated there after the break-up of The Beatles in 1970.
Born in New York in 1941, Linda Mccartney began her career in photography in the 1960s.
She would go on to become the first female photographer to take a cover image for Rolling Stone magazine.
Sir Paul said: “Linda would have been so proud of this exhibition being held in Scotland, a country she loved so much and spent so many happy days in.”
Stella Mccartney added: “Through these images you meet the real mother I knew.
“You see her raw and deep talent and passion for her art, photography.
“Ahead of her time on every level, this mother-of-four-still held her camera close like a companion.
“She captures the world around her through her eyes – her humour, love of family and nature, and her moments framed with a slight surreal edge. Scotland was one of her favourite places and so many images were taken there.” David Mcdonald, chair of Glasgow Life, which runs Kelvingrove on behalf of the city council, said: “This fascinating exhibition explores the full spectrum of photographic work by Linda Mccartney, from her early career as a woman photographer working in a sector dominated at the time by men to her documentation of her family life and the natural world.
“This retrospective provides us with a fascinating and rare insight into a brilliant artist during the different periods of her photographic practice.”