Paul McCartney's camera captures Beatlemania in new Toronto exhibit

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Exhibit was first staged in London in 2023

Published Feb 18, 2026 • Last updated 4 hours ago • 3 minute read

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Paul McCartney, self-portrait, London, 1963 Photo by Paul McCartney, courtesy of the AGO /Paul McCartney, courtesy of the AGOArticle content

There are places Paul McCartney remembers as The Beatles moved from Liverpool sensations to global superstars — aka Beatlemania — and some of them are captured in a new McCartney photo exhibit at Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario, its only Canadian stop.

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Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm is made up of 250 pictures taken by the Beatles’ singer-bassist-songwriter over three months between December1963 and February 1964 as the Fab Four travelled from Liverpool to London, Paris, New York, Washington, D.C., and Miami.

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It’s all spread out over 10,000 square-feet on the AGO’s fifth floor.

“It’s very much a show about memory,” Flavia Frigeri, Curatorial and Collections Director at the National Portrait Gallery, London, said during a media preview on Wednesday. “It’s also very much about collective memory. It’s almost like a time capsule. And during this time, it was really the whirlwind of Beatlemania and it all started with a Pentax camera that Paul McCartney took along with him on this journey.”

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Frigeri said it wasn’t until 2020 that the photos, part of a 1,000-picture collection, were unearthed from the McCartney Productions archive and the exhibit debuted first in London in 2023 and has since travelled the world, now landing in Toronto.

Fab Four all photographed in boyish wonder

The Beatles — McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr — are all captured in all their fresh-faced and fun glory, along with manager Brian Epstein, McCartney’s girlfriend Jane Asher, producer George Martin, along with accompanying press photographers, and even scenery and landscapes of the places they visited.

Ringo Starr, London, January, 1964 (Paul McCartney, courtesy of the AGO) Photo by Paul McCartney, courtesy of AGO

“The photographs demonstrate for me that Paul, the multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, and even actor, A Hard Day’s Night and Help!, and so forth, was also a highly skilled photographer,” said Jim Shedden, AGO Curator, Special Projects and Director, Publishing, during the media preview.

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“He’s careful to say that he doesn’t claim to be a master photographer, just someone who was in the right place at the right time in an understatement. It’s incredible what happens in that 10-week run. They became an international phenomenon and the exhibition traces the rise of their fame.”

West 58th Street, crossing 6th avenue, New York, Feb. 1964 (Paul McCartney, courtesy of AGO) Photo by Paul McCartney courtesy of AGO

McCartney first was introduced to photography through his younger brother Mike and would go on to marry photographer Linda Eastman. His daughter Mary is also a photographer.

Among the exhibit’s photo highlights in black and white and colour are backstage shots at concerts and TV studios, at home with the McCartneys and the Ashers, posing for a sculptor, road trip photos on planes and trains, fishing, waterskiing, swimming and visiting at a friends home in Miami, plus things like diary entries, accountant slips, and videos of them at a news conference in America and on the Ed Sullivan Show.

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The Beatles with Clay portrait busts by David Wynne, 1964 (Courtesy of the AGO) Photo by AGO

“I think it was a cultural rupture,” said Shedden of Beatlemania in an interview with the Sun.

“And they also evolved. If you listen album after album, each album moves forward and it’s like seven years, like from the time Ringo starts to the time they break up. It’s a kind of restless creativity and there’s a bit of magic somehow.”

The AGO version of the exhibit also has a section called Beatlemania! in Toronto.

Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm is open to AGO Members’ until Feb 26, then passholders until March 22, and then the public from March 24 until June 7.

Paul McCartney’s camera captures Beatlemania in new Toronto exhibit

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