McCartney Times

1964: Eyes of the Storm

‘Millions of eyes were suddenly upon us, creating a picture I will never forget for the rest of my life.’

In 2020, an extraordinary trove of nearly a thousand photographs taken by Paul McCartney 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 McCartney’s personal record of this explosive time, when he was, as he puts it, in the ‘Eyes of the Storm’.

1964: Eyes of the Storm presents 275 of McCartney’s 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. In his Foreword and Introductions to these city portfolios, McCartney 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 – and a Coda on the later months of 1964 – featuring 275 of Paul McCartney’s photographs and his candid reflections on them
– A Foreword by Paul McCartney
– 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