Beatlemania will come to London’s Gagosian gallery later this month with a show of photographs by the musician Paul McCartney reflecting the Liverpool group’s stratospheric rise to fame. Rearview Mirror: Liverpool–London–Paris (28 August-4 October, Gagosian Davies Street) comprises single frame and multi-image works remastered from original negatives and contact sheets thought to have been lost for more than half a century.
Gagosian‘s director of photography, Joshua Chuang, selected specific images on “their artistic merit” and worked closely with McCartney to reproduce the prints using fine art photography processes, says a gallery spokesperson. The images, signed by the Beatles star, are available in a variety of edition sizes, ranging from six to ten, and priced between $20,000 and $85,000 with key pieces available in the midrange, adds the spokesperson.
Paul McCartney, Self-portrait in my room at the Asher family home, Wimpole Street, London, December 1963 © Paul McCartney. Courtesy of Gagosian
All of the images shown in London were included in a larger presentation at Gagosian Beverly Hills earlier this year. “However, this presentation in London focuses on an even more specific period of time that [the Beatles] spent in London, Liverpool and Paris,” the spokesperson adds.
The images, taken between December 1963 and February 1964, capture pivotal moments, such as the group’s three-week residency at the Olympia Theatre in Paris, and their appearance on the BBC’s Juke Box Jury music show.
A self-portrait shows McCartney reflected in the mirror of his attic room in the London family home of his then-girlfriend, Jane Asher. In a Gagosian film posted on YouTube, he says: “This room, and the piano in this room… I just had this song in my head. And I woke up. I like that tune, what is it?… And after about two weeks, nobody knowing it, I just decided it had to be mine. And it was Yesterday.” Asked what his response is to the works, McCartney says: “The main feeling is just remembering the joy.”
John on the Champs-Élysées, Paris, 15 January 1964 © Paul McCartney. Courtesy of Gagosian
Further images reflect other important events which are outlined in the titles. These include At London Airport (with Brian Epstein, Mal Evans, and Neil Aspinall) for Pan Am flight 101 to New York City, 7 February 1964, which was taken before the Beatles’s debut visit to America. Another photograph shows John Lennon backstage at the London Palladium, 12 January 1964. Each picture was taken with McCartney’s 35mm Pentax camera which he acquired late 1963.
Elizabeth Smith, an independent photography consultant who has worked at the Photographers’ Gallery in London and Christie’s, tells The Art Newspaper that exhibiting McCartney’s newly discovered works is a “clever move”.
Paul McCartney, At London Airport (with Brian Epstein, Mal Evans, and Neil Aspinall) for Pan Am flight 101 to New York City, 7 February 1964, 2025 © Paul McCartney. Courtesy of Gagosian
“I believe Paul McCartney has been a photographer since his childhood though not much was known about this work until his National Portrait Gallery (NPG) exhibition in [London] in 2023. Gagosian will undoubtedly get widespread interest from both diehard Beatles fans, along with collectors keen to have something both unseen and unknown from such a seminal cultural figure,” she adds. “While the prices may initially appear steep, their audience is buying the image as well as the signature.”
McCartney’s photography is having a moment: the Gagosian show coincides with the touring exhibition Paul McCartney Photographs 1963–64: Eyes of the Storm, which opened at the NPG and is currently at the de Young, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (until 5 October).
