In Paul McCartney’s Photos at the de Young, a Wide-Eyed Look at a Distant America

We all know, many times over, what Paul McCartney’s ears hear. But what do his eyes see? Specifically, what were his eyes attuned to during the Beatles’ meteoric rise in the early years of the band?

Paul McCartney Photographs 1963–64: Eyes of the Storm, on view March 1–July 6, 2025 at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, answers the question with more than 250 recently unearthed photos taken by the famous musician. Perhaps more than anything, the photos in Eyes of the Storm capture sheer bewilderment — not just at being suddenly thrust onto the global limelight as a teen idol, but at America itself.

“We were fascinated with what we were doing and what was happening to us,” McCartney says in the exhibition wall text. “I’ve never lost that sense of wonder.”

McCartney has also long harbored a sense of earnest silliness, seen in photos of George Harrison wearing a double-decker top hat, Ringo Starr in a Napoleon getup, or John Lennon twisting up his face and picking a fight with a bust by sculptor David Wynne. One photo simply shows an airplane pulling an advertising banner reading “THERE IS ONLY ONE MISTER PANTS”; one can imagine Paul’s youthful amusement as he reaches for his camera.

More intimate moments are shown, whether with McCartney’s bandmates or multiple people credited as “unidentified woman backstage.” The regular presence of adults underscores McCartney’s observation that this era’s photos “remind me more of an England that was more my parents’ generation than my own.” One photo of Harrison’s mother in England shows her with silver hair and a decorative brooch, glancing crookedly up to the camera with a look of hesitation.

And then there is the introspective side. Ringo sitting alone with his signature “I’m doing algebra equations in my head” look. John, up close, with chin rested on his knuckles, like a Rodin sculpture. Paul taking selfies in a mirror in Paris, cigarette plunged sideways into his lips, perfecting his cool-guy look.

If McCartney’s photographs occasionally constitute fine art, it’s likely by mistake. Many are out of focus or amateurishly composed, which of course lends them a relatability — he’s a 21-year-old playing around with his new Pentax single-lens 35mm, after all. For one so committed to the practiced craft of songwriting (Lennon was always the greater experimentalist), this imprecision is refreshing to see.

Sometimes, though, he strikes gold, as in a mirror selfie with a sharp depth of field taken at girlfriend Jane Asher’s house. I stared at length, also, at a silhouette of French model Sophie Hardy in a slinky black dress, smoking stylishly in profile, her tresses bouncing around her perfect jawline, all framed by two lamps in the foreground.

Bay Area fans will surely want to know if the show includes photos from the Beatles’ concert at the Cow Palace in 1964. It does not, nor does it cover their return concert at the Cow Palace in 1965 or their final commercial concert at Candlestick Park in 1966. (McCartney had slowed down his photo-taking by then, images of U.S. opening acts the Exciters and Clarence “Frogman” Henry notwithstanding.)

But the exhibition does successfully transmit the wide-eyed fascination of a young British kid abroad. In New York, before sending tectonic shocks throughout the country by appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show, McCartney photographed the Chrysler building, neon signs and rooftop water towers. He also captured fans running after the band’s car on W. 58th Street, shot from the back window. (Other images show fans breaking through police barricades or gathered in huge crowds at the airport as Beatlemania tore through the country.)

What of the more specific, peculiar objects that caught Paul’s attention? In Washington, D.C., his eye turned to an adult theater marquee promoting a nude film. In Miami, it was a giant Miller High Life billboard. These are post-adolescent interests, but they also represent an interest in America, and the odd way we do things here.

In Miami, for example, Paul photographed a motorcycle cop, but just his waist. “We didn’t have armed police officers back home,” he explains in wall text. So, through the shocked eye of McCartney, we see a close-up of a holster and pistol, with six reserve bullets stored along the belt.

In innocent, curious photographs like these, taken by a figurehead of the 1960s and a band said to have changed the world, one has to wonder: Has the world really changed that much since?

‘Paul McCartney Photographs 1963–64: Eyes of the Storm’ is on view at the de Young Museum March 1–July 6, 2025.