The London cultural agenda has a very special and long-awaited date marked for 2023: June 22, when the National Portrait Gallery in London opens its doors again after being closed in March 2020. In these three years, this iconic London institution has undergone a major renovation, from its building to its brand image, which promises to combine tradition and modernity in a single space and that the public will be able to celebrate and enjoy through a series of major exhibitions.
The most important of these is ‘Paul McCartney, Photographs 1963–64: Eyes of the Storm’, a series of photographs taken by the renowned musician between December 1963 and February 1964, which had been lost for decades, according to the artist, and which Now they will finally see the light. “They will provide a unique personal perspective on what it was like to be a Beatle at the start of Beatlemania,” explains Nicholas Cullinan, gallery director. “Photographs taken in this period captured the moment when John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr went from being Britain’s most popular band to becoming an international cultural phenomenon.” It was when they went from gigging in Liverpool and London to playing ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ in New York to a television audience of 73 million people…
For McCartney himself, having found these almost a thousand images in his archive, of which two hundred will be exhibited, was a unique experience, as he explained to the BBC. Taken with a 35mm camera. in cities like Liverpool, London, Paris, New York, Washington DC or Miami, they represent “my own record of our first great trip”, he assured, adding that “they are a photographic diary of the Beatles in six cities, starting in Liverpool and London, followed by Paris, where John and I had hitchhiked three years earlier, and then what we consider to be the big moment, our first visit to the United States as a group.”
McCartney, still active at 80, vividly relived those moments, as “anyone who rediscovers a personal heirloom or family treasure is instantly flooded with memories and emotions, which then trigger associations buried in the mists of time.” “This was exactly my experience looking at these photos, all taken during an intense three-month trip,” he said. And he added that “it was a wonderful feeling to immerse myself again” at that moment, which marked a before and after in the band’s career.
It was he himself who went to the National Portrait Gallery, which houses the largest collection of portraits in the world, to show his particular treasure. “We sat down with him to review the photographs and they are really extraordinary,” considers the gallery director, for whom being able to observe the intimate images of “such a well-documented, famous and important cultural moment” was something incredible. They were “taken by someone who was really, as the title of the exhibition alludes, in the eye of the storm watching what was happening.”
Coinciding with this unprecedented exhibition, which will run from June 28 to October 1, a book will also be published on June 13 that “provides an intimate record of late 1963 and early 1964, when Beatlemania broke out in the UK.” Kingdom” and later, when, after “the band’s first visit to the United States, they became the most famous people on the planet.” “Millions of eyes suddenly fell on us, creating an image that I will never forget for the rest of my life,” said McCartney, who was part of the team that made the selection for a book containing nearly 300 images that will delight viewers. fans of the group that marked not only British, but world history.
Meanwhile, the gallery director points out that “our exhibition program for our first year presents some of the world’s best-known artists in a new light, contains extraordinary images never seen before, discovers the work of notable innovators, charts a important cultural ground and shows the best contemporary portraits.
And it is that, in addition to the never-before-seen images of The Beatles taken by Paul McCartney, the famous institution will open its doors exploring the life and career of the 20th-century photographer, Yevonde, who pioneered the use of color photography in the 1930s. ‘Yevonde: Life and Color’, which is open to the public from June 22 to October 15, 2023, “will examine the portraits and still lifes the artist produced throughout his career, positioning Yevonde as pioneer in the history of British portrait photography”, as highlighted by the gallery.
Yevonde Philone Middleton, an Englishman, effectively pioneered the use of color in portrait photography, and used the professional name Madame Yevonde in a career during her six-decade career. “With the support of the Chanel Culture Fund, the exhibition builds on ‘Reframing Narratives: Women in Portraiture,’ a large three-year project that aims to improve the representation of women in the Gallery Collection.”