(London) Never-before-seen photos of the Beatles in their early days taken by Paul McCartney were released by the National Portrait Gallery in London on Thursday, three months before the opening of an exhibition featuring more than 250 snaps of the band taken by the singer .
Photographs are made public in dribs and drabs before the exhibition event: three in January, five on Thursday.
These are shots taken at the height of Beatlesmania, in 1963 and 1964.
In one of the photos, Ringo Starr is seen laughing out loud. Another shows John Lennon in Paris, smiling, cap on his head. There is also a self-portrait of Paul McCartney in a mirror. And also a shirtless George Harrison, in Florida, “young, handsome and relaxed”, according to the legend.
More than 250 photographs taken by Paul McCartney with his Pentax camera will be on view at the National Portrait Gallery from June 28 to 1er October, as part of the exhibition Paul McCartney photographs 1963-64: Eyes Of The Storm (Photographs by Paul McCartney 1963-1964: Eyes of the Storm).
These photos were taken between November 1963 and February 1964, when the Fab Four, Britain’s most popular band, became a worldwide phenomenon.
The exhibition, which will mark the reopening of the National Portrait Gallery after three years of work, will show “the frenzy of Beatlesmania seen from the inside”, explains the museum in a press release.
We will see the group in Liverpool, rehearsing in Paris, in the streets of Manhattan, under the sun of Miami, etc. Paul McCartney captured moments of concentration, relaxation, joy.
In 2020, Paul McCartney came into contact with the National Portrait Gallery after coming across these images he thought were lost.
“Looking at them now, decades after taking them, I find there is a kind of innocence in them. Everything was new to us at that time. But I like to think I wouldn’t take them any differently today,” the now 80-year-old singer said.
“They bring back so many stories, a flood of special memories, which is one of the reasons I love them all. I know they will always ignite my imagination”.