Paul Mccartney, Photographs 1963 - 1964: Eyes Of The Storm | National Portrait Gallery
Paul McCartney, self portrait, London 1963-4 ©1963-4 Paul McCartney.
Text: Eloise King-Clements
A 21-year-old Paul McCartney gingerly holds his Pentax camera below his chin. Through a lopsided vanity mirror, everything is out of focus. There’s a solemnity to the way he watches his reflection, the seriousness and vague confusion of someone entering adulthood, and the distant question of his band’s success. Three years into their conception, The Beatles were the most popular band in England. In November of 1963, they were poised to embark on a three-month trip: three cities across Europe and then, for the first time, to New York City, Washington D.C., and Miami. As many young groups found early fame and peetered out, this tour was the decisive moment for The Beatles. In this three-month period, they went from a catchy boy band from Liverpool to universal rock stars, leaving heaps of sobbing, lusty teenage girls in their wake. On June 28th, The National Portrait Gallery will open their exhibition Paul McCartney, Photographs 1963–64: Eyes of the Storm, to display what was happening inside of Beatlemania.
The 1960s saw real teenagers for the first time. World War I and II had pushed kids into adulthood, drafting boys at 18 and leaving girls and women to handle business at home. But with America’s quick rebound of wealth, the ‘60s were primed for The Beatles; teenagers who had not experienced wartime were tired of the conservative mass-suburbia. Simultaneously, the Civil Rights Movement had been building momentum and reached a crescendo in the summer of 1963 with the March on Washington.
Photographers, Central Park, New York, February 1964 ©1964 Paul McCartney.
The Beatles, their name a fusion of the Beat Poets and The Crickets, landed in the newly minted JFK airport in February of 1964. John F. Kennedy had been shot just two months prior. Immediately, they were met with mass hysteria. Journalists and fans came in droves—packed in caravans, they chasing them down the street, eager to get a shot, any shot of the Fab Four.
As the group began doing press interviews, they achieved a reputation for their unequivocally charming, glib responses—Reporter: Are you a Mod or a Rocker? Starr: I’m a Mocker—and their laissez-faire attitudes towards the piercing spotlight on them. Despite this, McCartney seemed to maintain an earnestness and grounded demeanor, even far into their XXL celebrity. You cannot help but wonder, however, if his Pentax illuminated his true thoughts, at once reveling in the gilded hotels and adoring fans, while also framing them and holding them at bay. As Susan Sontag famously said in her book of essay, On Photography, the camera can serve as “a defense against anxiety” and a coping mechanism to serve as a buffer between the photographer and the world in front of them.
John In Paris, January 1964 ©1964 Paul McCartney.
McCartney seemed to have a meta fascination with paparazzi, often choosing to photograph them. He writes in The Guardian, “I often took pictures of them, not so much for revenge but because they were an interesting group of people. I would often say to them, What’s the right lighting?, because they were professionals and would automatically know.” In one shot at Central Park, two men hold cameras to their smiling faces, so close to the frame, to McCartney, you wonder if their lenses might knock together, and you can faintly read the Nippon Kogaku Nikkor marking on the barrel.
Another shot, just weeks prior in Paris, depicts John Lennon with a photo-bomber’s mischievous grin across his face, and journalists holding cameras in the background. What’s striking is the symbiosis with which The Beatles and the press seem to engage with each other. In that first trip to America, it does not feel like a violation the way it was a handful of years later. In 1966, after Lennon’s comment “We’re more popular than Jesus now,” was plucked from a longer interview and printed in blazing headlines across the USA, they unanimously decided to stop touring due to the escalating threats to their safety. The group ultimately became more reclusive and retreated from their fame. But back in 1964, they were open to fans and press alike.
Ringo Starr, London 1963-4 ©1963-4 Paul McCartney.
John and George stand in the elbow of a doorway; it’s close up and somehow McCartney seems to compress space. George, standing closer to the lens, overlaps John, their eyes almost touching. The photograph tells of their intimacy and simultaneous distance—George auditioned to join John’s group, The Quarrymen, which they later renamed The Beatles, when he was just 15, and John, thinking he was too young, turned him away. He later began filling in on guitar and eventually, John accepted him into the group. George’s profile looks out into the street, while John looks directly into the camera, solemn, his eyes a bit vacant.
The Beatles appeared three times on the Ed Sullivan Show in New York. We see Ringo Starr setting up his drum set, white, futuristic walls bearing down on him. In another, a blurred image of a rare Ringo Starr smiling, eyes closed, hair flying as he bobs his head.
George looking young, handsome and relaxed. Living the life. Miami Beach, February 1964. © 1964 Paul McCartney.
One of the strongest photographs is of George Harrison in Miami. His black sunglasses look into the camera, his thin arm moves diagonally across the frame to receive a rum and coke from a disembodied woman in a yellow bathing suit. The faint shadow of a mustache runs along his lip, his bangs stick to his forehead and his ears are faintly pink. McCartney recounts this was their first time seeing palm trees. It registers as the culmination of this period: the woman’s body turned towards him, Harrison looking into the camera shielded by sunglasses, with small pimples dotting his chin. The series tells the story of a group of boys, mere mortals, transformed abruptly into gods.
The National Portrait Gallery will open Paul McCartney, Photographs 1963–64: Eyes of the Storm, 250 photographs taken by McCartney from November 1963 to February 1964, as part of their major exhibition from June 28th until October 1, 2023.
