Paul McCartney announces Eyes Of The Storm book and exhibition

Paul McCartney has announced a book and exhibition featuring his photography from the 1960s.

1964: Eyes Of The Storm is a 336-page hardback book featuring 275 images taken by McCartney in Liverpool, London, Paris, New York, Washington, DC, and Miami. The images were from a collection of nearly 1,000 of photographs taken by McCartney with a 35mm camera, which was discovered in 2020.

To look at the love and the wonder of what we went through that’s captured in a lot of these photographs is the whole thing. It’s what makes life great

The book contains a foreword by McCartney, an introduction by historian Jill Lepore, and a preface by Nicholas Cullinan, director of the National Portrait Gallery.

The National Portrait Gallery is also to stage an exhibition of McCartney’s photographs in London. Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm will run from 28 June to 1 October 2023, with tickets ranging from £5-£24.50 (free for members and patrons).

Here’s the full press release:

Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm
28 June – 1 October 2023
The National Portrait Gallery, London

1964: Eyes of the Storm
Photographs and Reflections by Paul McCartney
Publishing 13 June 2023
With additional essays by Jill Lepore, Nicholas Cullinan and Rosie Broadley

In 2020, an extraordinary trove of nearly a thousand photographs taken by Paul on a 35mm camera was re-discovered in his archive. They intimately record the months towards the end of 1963 and beginning of 1964 when Beatlemania erupted in the UK and, after the band’s first visit to the USA, they became the most famous people on the planet. The photographs are Paul’s personal record of this explosive time, when they, The Beatles, were inside looking out and were the ‘Eyes of the Storm’.

In a new exhibition and book, Paul will present his photographs from the six cities of these intense, legendary months – Liverpool, London, Paris, New York, Washington, D.C. and Miami – and many never-before-seen portraits of John, George and Ringo.

‘Anyone who rediscovers a personal relic or family treasure is instantly flooded with memories and emotions, which then trigger associations buried in the haze of time. This was exactly my experience in seeing these photos, all taken over an intense three-month period of travel, culminating in February 1964. It was a wonderful sensation to be plunged right back.

Here was my own record of our first huge trip, a photographic journal of The Beatles in six cities, beginning in Liverpool and London, followed by Paris (where John and I had been ordinary hitchhikers just over two years before), and then what we regarded as the big time, our first visit as a group to America’ – Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm

In the week that follows the London National Portrait Gallery’s reopening, the Gallery is proud to present the major exhibition, Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm (28 June – 1 October 2023). This unprecedented display that will share, for the first time, the extraordinary archive of rediscovered and never-before-seen photographs taken by Paul.

This exhibition provides a uniquely personal perspective on what it was like to be a ‘Beatle’ at the start of ‘Beatlemania’ – from gigs in Liverpool and London to performing on The Ed Sullivan Show in New York to an unparalleled television audience of 73 million people. At a time when so many camera lenses were on the band, these photographs will share fresh insight into their experiences, their fans and the early 1960s, all through eyes of Paul McCartney.

At a time when so many camera lenses were on the band, these photographs will share fresh insight into their experiences, their fans and the early 1960s, all through eyes of Paul McCartney. This exhibition provides a uniquely personal and never-before-seen perspective on what it was like to be a ‘Beatle’ at the start of ‘Beatlemania’. The exhibition will run from 28 June until 1 October 2023, supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies.

1964: Eyes of the Storm
Photographs and Reflections by Paul McCartney

In a new book accompanying the National Portrait Gallery exhibition, Paul presents 275 of his own photographs from an iconic time in music history, organised into portfolios from the six cities The Beatles visited in this intense time period. In his Foreword and Introductions to these city portfolios, Paul remembers ‘what else can you call it – pandemonium’ and conveys his impressions of Britain and America in 1964 – the moment when the culture changed and the Sixties really began.

1964: Eyes of the Storm includes:

Six city portfolios – Liverpool, London, Paris, New York, Washington, D.C. and Miami – featuring 275 of Paul’s photographs and his candid reflections on them
A Foreword by Paul
Beatleland, an Introduction by Harvard historian and New Yorker essayist Jill Lepore
A Preface by Nicholas Cullinan, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London, and Another Lens, an essay by Senior Curator Rosie Broadley

Published 13th June 2023

Featuring 275 of Paul’s photographs and additional essays by Harvard historian and New Yorker essayist Jill Lepore, Director of the National Portrait Gallery Nicholas Cullinan and Senior Curator Rosie Broadley.