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 ahead of the opening of an exhibition that will feature more than 250 shots of the singer’s group shown.
Photographs will be made public in bulk before the exhibition event: three in January, five on Thursday.
These are recordings made in 1963 and 1964 at the height of Beatlesmania.
One of the photos shows Ringo Starr laughing out loud. Another shows John Lennon in Paris, smiling, with a hat on his head. There is also a self-portrait of Paul McCartney in a mirror. And also a shirtless George Harrison, in Florida, according to the legend “young, handsome and relaxed”.
More than 250 photographs taken by Paul McCartney with his Pentax camera will be on display at the National Portrait Gallery June 28-October 1 as part of the Paul McCartney Photographies 1963-64: Eyes Of The Storm exhibition McCartney Photo 1963-64: The Eyes of the Storm”).
These photos were taken between November 1963 and February 1964 when the Fab Four, Britain’s most popular band, were becoming a worldwide phenomenon.
The exhibition, which marks the reopening of the National Portrait Gallery after three years of work, will show “the frenzy of Beatlesmania seen from the inside,” the museum explains in a press release.
We’ll see the group in Liverpool, rehearsing in Paris, on the streets of Manhattan, under the Miami sun, etc. Paul McCartney has captured moments of focus, relaxation, joy.
In 2020, Paul McCartney came into contact with the National Portrait Gallery after coming across these images that he thought were lost.
“Looking at them now, decades after I took them, I find there’s a kind of innocence about them. Everything was new to us back then. But I like to think I wouldn’t take her any differently today,” said the now 80-year-old singer.
“They bring back so many stories, a flood of special memories, that’s one of the reasons I love them all. I know they will always capture my imagination.”