By Noma Faingold

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Paul McCartney was spending time in his archives, preparing a photo exhibition of the late Linda McCartney (Eastman), his first wife. The task happened to remind him that he had taken photos during a momentous three-month period (December 1963 through February 1964), when the Beatles were on the cusp of superstardom, often referred to as Beatlemania.

He asked his archivist, Sarah Brown, about the long-dormant snapshots. Much to his delight, she found around 1,000 photographs. The discovery of negatives and contact sheets (no prints were ever made), largely in good condition, became the impetus to mount an international touring museum exhibition called, “Paul McCartney Photographs 1963–64: Eyes of the Storm,” which will take up residence at San Francisco’s de Young Museum March 1 through July 6.

“This is a show a lot of people can connect to, whether or not it brings you back to a moment in time that you yourself experienced when you first discovered the Beatles,” said Sally Martin Katz, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) assistant curator of photography. “He’s using the camera as a visual diary. It was an impulse to record and to make sense of the world. It was an effort to capture it all because it was moving so fast. He used the camera as a tool to freeze time.”

The photos, which McCartney, 82, took at age 21 with a Pentax 35mm camera, include shots from Liverpool, London and Paris, before the band arrived in the United States for the first time, and in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Miami.

“What makes this unique is we’re getting to understand this moment in time. This very pivotal moment in cultural and social history from the perspective of one of the Beatles,” Katz said. “We get to experience this moment from an insider’s perspective. Moments that the public wasn’t privy to though the dominant imagery that circulated in the press at the time. He was able to bear witness to things that previously no one had seen.”

McCartney does not just document intimate, behind-the-scenes moments of John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and himself, or the frenzy of crazed fans and the throngs of paparazzi. He is now letting the public in on what he saw and felt. The imagery is sophisticated, artistic, personal and evocative.

“Seeing the photojournalists with their cameras shoved into their faces. It’s overwhelming. Here, he’s flipping it right onto them,” Katz said. “We get to understand this moment from a new perspective. We see a sense of wonder and oversaturation of what he’s being exposed to. It’s a critique, too.”

The photo exhibition tour began in London’s National Portrait Gallery in June 2023, with stops at the Brooklyn Museum, Tokyo City View and Portland Art Museum, among other venues. A companion book was also published.

The “Eyes of the Storm” exhibit includes 280 McCartney photos, archival materials (contact sheets, the camera, handwritten lyrics to the early Beatles hit, “I Want to Hold Your Hand”), the Fab Four’s first legendary live television appearance, Feb. 9, 1964, on the “Ed Sullivan Show,” watched by 73 million people (playing on a loop), along with a New York to D.C. video montage.

Even though there’s a strong San Francisco’s historical connection to the Beatles, as the band performed in the City three times between August 1964 to their last-ever paid concert on Aug. 29, 1966, at Candlestick Park, “Eyes of the Storm” does not include any local lore because the exhibition is a packaged show, not allowing for embellishments. However, Katz promises public programming, like talks, screenings and other activations to specifically connect to the Bay Area community.

Author and former San Francisco Chronicle music critic/feature writer, Joel Selvin, describes himself as the target audience when he was 14, when the Beatles first arrived in America.

“It was one of the most important events of our generation,” Selvin, 74, said. “It ranks up there with the Kennedy assassination in our history and our culture.”

Selvin, who has written 20 books on music, including his latest, “Drums and Demons: The Tragic Journey of Jim Gordon” (2024) and 2015’s “Here Comes the Night: The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues,” which is being developed into a biopic by director Rob Reiner, insists the appeal of the Beatles spans more than seven decades and that the exhibition should appeal to today’s youth.

“Rock music can bring people in. People who don’t go to museums will go,” he said. “It was a soundtrack for a generation and the music will live on in history. Our generation played the Beatles for our children. It was a rite of passage.”

Katz, 33, was introduced to the Beatles by her mother, who sang their songs to her at bedtime. She calls “Eyes of the Storm” an “immersive and unifying exhibition.” She is also enamored with McCartney’s artistic photo aesthetic and the subject matter he was drawn to in America.

He had an interest in photography growing up in working-class Liverpool, England. There are very real pictures of regular Americans he took, including one he took from a train of a Pennsylvania railroad worker casually posing with a shovel.

“There was social commentary and a fascination with the American way of life. It’s interesting to see who he is drawn to,” she said. “He trained his lens on these people. That was part of his story, part of his experience. Looking outward. Those pictures are powerful punctuations throughout the show.”

He also trained the lens on himself in a self-portrait, the first image visitors will see at the show. McCartney is holding the camera in front of a mirror.

“I love that it is blurry. This picture encapsulates the idea of the exhibition. It’s Paul McCartney as photographer, not just the legendary musician that he is known to be,” Katz said. “He embraced the imperfections of the medium. He was interested in creating experimental compositions, playing with angles, reflections and lighting. This self-portrait shows his creativity and ingenuity as an artist. The blur encapsulates the feeling of that time.”

Paul McCartney Photographs 1963–64: Eyes of the Storm, will run from March 1 to July 6 at the de Young Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, San Francisco. Learn more at famsf.org.