I’m a big enough fan of The Beatles that I sat through eight hours of Peter Jackson’s meticulously restored footage of the ‘Fab Four’ working on their final studio album in Disney+ docuseries, The Beatles: Get Back. So news of a Beatles-themed photography exhibition at the Gagosian’s Davies Street location in London was always going to be of interest. But Rearview Mirror: Liverpool–London–Paris isn’t your typical fly-on-the-wall showcase, because all of the images were captured by none other than Paul McCartney.
It would be foolish to think that a man who’s spent a lifetime expressing himself through various media, be it a lyric sheet, bass guitar, piano, or paint brush, could pick up a camera and do anything but capture enticing imagery. But what I love most about these photographs is that only three other people in the world could have come close to matching the spirit of Paul’s work: John, George, and Ringo. That’s because there’s an intimacy in the photography that could only have been captured by a fellow Beatle.
