Never-before-seen photos of Paul McCartney transport you to Beatlemania

On February 1, 1964 the... frenzy of "Beatles» hits the US. The famous group from Liverpool scores their first No1 in the US charts. With John Lennon and George Harrison on guitars, Paul McCartney on bass and Ringo Starr on drums, the song "I Want to Hold Your Hand" took off, reaching the top.

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In 1963, the  Beatles was a musical sensation who toured throughout the UK and Europe. By the time their plane landed in New York in February 1964, embarking on their first visit as a group to the United States, the Fab Four were an international phenomenon.

Later this year, an exhibition at  National Portrait Gallery of London will examine this whirlwind period from the perspective of a Beatle. 

Opening on June 28, the “Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm” will feature never-before-seen photos taken by  Paul McCartney between December 1963 and February 1964. 

Until he met them recently, McCartney thought the photos he took in those months were lost to time. 

"Anyone who rediscovers a personal heirloom or family treasure is immediately flooded with memories and emotions, which then trigger associations buried in the mists of time," McCartney writes in 1964: Eyes of the Storm, an upcoming companion book, according to his Stephen Thompson NPR. "That was exactly my experience when I saw these photographs, all taken during an intense three-month period of travel, culminating in February 1964. It was a wonderful feeling that immediately plunged me into the past."

The images offer a "uniquely personal perspective on what it was like to be a 'Beatle' at the start of 'Beatlemania'," says official description of the gallery exhibition. "At a time when there were so many camera lenses on the band, Paul McCartney tells the truest story of a band making cultural history – in one of his most compelling chapters."

The photos are a "record of our first huge trip," McCartney writes, "a photographic journal of the Beatles in six cities, starting with Liverpool and London, followed by Paris (where John [Lennon] and I were used to hitchhiking three years before), and then what we considered the big moment, our first visit as a group to America."

The accompanying book will be published shortly before the opening of the exhibition, which coincides with McCartney's 81st birthday on June 18. The 1964: Eyes of the Storm will contain 275 photographs, shot on 35mm camera in New York, Washington, London, Liverpool, Miami and Paris.

"They were really drawn, as the exhibition's title suggests, into the eye of the storm looking out at what was going on," Nicholas Cullinan, the gallery's director, tells Harriet Sherwood of Guardian.

Eyes of the Storm will help mark the gallery's reopening after three years of renovations, initially triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic. On June 22, his first exhibition will be a retrospective of the 20th century English photographer Yevonde. Other shows planned for this year will showcase his designs  David Hockney and portraits of black artists .

Cullinan tells the Guardian that the gallery's program for its first year "presents some of the world's best-known artists in a new light, contains extraordinary and unusual images, reveals the work of notable innovators, maps important cultural terrain and exhibits the largest contemporary portrait".

The " Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm ” will be on view at the National Portrait Gallery in London from June 28th to October 1st.

*Cover photo: McCartney shot the images on a 35mm camera in New York, Washington, London, Liverpool, Miami and Paris. Paul McCartney / National Portrait Gallery

With information from smithsonianmag