A new exhibition puts the viewer behind Paul McCartney’s own camera during a time that changed music history.
Growing up in Liverpool in the 1940s and 50s, Paul McCartney had two passions: his guitar and the family’s Kodak Brownie box camera. But while he and his bandmates would redefine music forever, photography remained little more than a cherished hobby. He did, however, capture the excitement of the pivotal period between October 1963 and February 1964 when the Beatles transformed from a British sensation into global superstars. A flagship exhibition at the Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence, titled “Eyes of the Storm”, now presents some 250 of McCartney’s photos, offering an inside perspective and intimate glimpses grabbed amid the chaos of fame that surrounded the Fab Four. Jointly produced with the National Portrait Gallery, London, the show runs through 3 January 2027.
Grainy black-and-white portraits from Liverpool backstage areas, rehearsal shots from a Paris studio, and wintry Manhattan cityscapes are interspersed with sun-splashed Kodachrome colour images from Miami Beach, video clips, and archival documents. They show the Beatles from within their inner circle: backstage moments, tour life, and the explosion of “Beatlemania,” culminating in their legendary appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. The photographs survived only as contact sheets and negatives in McCartney’s personal archive, unnoticed until their rediscovery in 2020.
Courtesy aixmaville on Instagram
Spread over 700 m², the parcours is organized in seven sections, each forming an important chapter in the narrative.
SECTION 1 — Behind the Lens
Paul McCartney’s interest in photography dates back to his childhood and his family’s first camera, a Kodak Brownie, later replaced by the 35 mm Pentax SLR. As a teenager in post-war England, he was keenly aware of the transformations happening in popular culture and the visual arts, notably through the work of early photojournalists whose reportage he read in newspapers. He shared this interest in photography and music with his brother Mike, who took some of the earliest portraits of Paul McCartney and the Beatles, two of which are on display in this section.
Paul McCartney, Autoportrait, Londres, 1963
© 1963-1964 Paul McCartney sous licence exclusive de MPL Archive LLP
SECTION 2 — Liverpool and London
The earliest photographs in this exhibition were taken during the Beatles’ tour which started in Cheltenham in November 1963. The term “Beatlemania” had just been coined in response to the enthusiastic reaction of fans during a variety show performance.
McCartney photographed the acts who performed on stage as support for the Beatles, notably Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers and the Vernons Girls, a group that would later record a song titled We Love the Beatles. The photographs also show band members backstage, away from the frenzied fans, with their entourage and the other touring artists.
SECTION 3 — Paris
The band members arrived in Paris in January 1964. Their schedule during their stay was intense: photo shoots and recording sessions were planned around a series of eighteen concerts at the Olympia, sometimes with up to three performances a day. They shared the bill with American singer Trini Lopez and Bulgarian-French singer Sylvie Vartan, at the time engaged to French rock star Johnny Hallyday.
Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Paris, janvier 1964
© 1964 Paul McCartney sous licence exclusive de MPL Archive LLP
At this time the Beatles were writing songs for their upcoming film, A Hard Day’s Night (1964). Then they received a telegram announcing that their single I Want to Hold Your Hand had just reached number one in the United States – a genuine turning point for the Beatles, whose fame now extended to the international stage.
SECTION 4 — Departures and Arrivals
The Beatles flew to New York on 7 February 1964 where a packed schedule awaited the group across New York, Washington, DC, and Miami.
The photographs in this section show the Beatles during their journey between Heathrow, London’s airport, and New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. They convey the group’s joy and wonder as they set off on a journey that would change their lives.
SECTION 5 — New York
On their arrival in New York, their song I Want To Hold Your Hand topped the American charts, and they were due to appear on the famous “Ed Sullivan Show” on 9 February 1964: 73 million television viewers watched their performance – a historic moment for television, and of course for the band.
Paul McCartney, West 58th Street, à l’intersection de la Sixième Avenue, février 1964
© 1964 Paul McCartney sous licence exclusive de MPL Archive LLP
McCartney’s first photos of Manhattan were taken through the window of the car driving them through the city, capturing the fans chasing them down West 58th Street. A room was reserved for them at the Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue, and McCartney photographed the mounted police from the car as they contained the crowds approaching the hotel.
SECTION 6 — New York to Washington DC
Due to heavy snowfall, the group travelled by train from New York to Washington DC, rather than by plane as originally planned. On 11 February 1964, McCartney took this series of photographs through the window of their train carriage, then from the vehicle that brought them from Union Station to the Washington Coliseum. It was in this now-legendary venue that the Beatles gave their first concert in the United States, before returning to New York the next day to give two concerts at Carnegie Hall.
In these photographs, McCartney creates a connection with the people he encounters in the street, by chance along his route. The artist has said he was always drawn to depicting the mundane lives of ordinary people in his creative work. Having grown up in a working-class family in Liverpool, where his father worked as a cotton merchant – one of the city’s main trading industries – photography allowed him from a young age to capture, with empathy, every facet of that humanity.
SECTION 7 — Miami
Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Miami Beach, février 1964
© 1964 Paul McCartney sous licence exclusive de MPL Archive LLP
This section includes some of McCartney’s favourite photographs, such as the portrait of a young girl framed in a car window. With this photograph, the artist captures a rare sense of serenity in such an intense period. While figures jostle in the background, the girl calmly looks at McCartney’s lens, her scarf catching the light.
When the Beatles arrived in Miami, McCartney swapped black-and-white film for colour, to better capture Miami’s blue sky, palm trees, and golden sand. The contrast is striking between the snowstorms that had hit Washington DC just days before and this sunny warmth. Here the band finally got a few days’ rest, and Paul McCartney took the opportunity to photograph his friends by the pool, on a boating trip, swimming, and water skiing.
The section concludes with a film produced and directed by McCartney, who also composed its soundtrack, inspired by all the photographs in this exhibition.
Video via Musée Granet – Aix-en-Provence on YouTube
Originally launched in 2023 for the reopening of the National Portrait Gallery in London, the show at Musée Granet is the first European stop following the USA, Canada, and Japan. Curator Rosie Broadley had unprecedented access to the archive, with McCartney personally involved in selecting images and contributing memories, so that as much as possible, his own words accompany the works.
The exhibition is intended to offer intimate perspective not just on McCartney but also on John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, capturing the moment when not only four friends’ lives changed forever at breakneck speed, but also music and photography.
The artist himself only saw many of these photos for the first time when they were printed and enlarged for the exhibition – more than 60 years after taking them. “Seeing these photos doesn’t give me so much a sense of loss as of retrospective joy,” he reminisces. “In fact, each photo brings back memories, and I can have fun finding the place where a particular photo was taken, remembering what we were doing off-camera at that moment.”
Courtesy Musée Granet
At the time he took these pictures, he was well aware that photography required real skills. “You couldn’t be lazy then. You had to take the right picture, actually compose the image in the frame without the safety of knowing you could crop it later”, he remembers. Although he had enjoyed the pastime since his early youth, his artistic connection to it only deepened when he married professional photographer Linda Eastman in 1969. This legacy continues today through their daughter, photographer Mary McCartney.
At age 84, Paul McCartney remains an active multidisciplinary artist, writing, producing and recording music, authoring books, painting, and still occasionally picking up a camera.
We were fascinated by what we were doing and what was happening to us and it’s something I’ve never really lost… I’ve never lost that sense of wonder.”
— Sir Paul McCartney
This exhibition is part of the Bicentennial of Photography celebrations organised by the French Ministry of Culture.
VISITOR INFORMATION
Paul McCartney, Photographe 1963/64 – Eyes of the Storm | Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence
Through 3 January 2027
Access for persons with reduced mobility via 18, rue Roux-Alphéran
See detailed visitor information
Visit also the concurrent expo Coup de Chapeau by Alex Kosta, on through 6 September
VENUE DETAILS
Musée Granet
Place Saint Jean de Malte
13100 Aix-en-Provence
Tel: +33 (0)4 42 52 88 32
Web: https://www.museegranet-aixenprovence.fr
PHOTO CREDITS
- All photos courtesy Musée Granet and as credited
- Lead image by Didier Devèze – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
- Instagram post and video as credited
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