ICONS OF ROCK `n' ROLL - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), May, 2001 by Gabriele A. Abbott

Linda McCartney's "often-unposed portraits of the greats of the music scene capture the spirit not on/y of her subjects, but of an era."

BEFORE SHE MARRIED Beatle Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman covered the music scene of the 1960s, first as house photographer of New York's Fillmore East concert hall, then as the first photographer of Rolling Stone magazine. She specialized in capturing the character of the new British and West Coast bands as they visited New York, shooting groups like the Doors and the Who before they catapulted to superstardom. At recording sessions and rehearsals, backstage, on tour, and in concert, she was accepted as a "band member whose instrument was the camera," as she once put it.

Her often-unposed portraits of the greats of the music scene capture the spirit not only of her subjects, but of an era. Her spontaneous style was the perfect match for that live-for-the-moment decade.

In 1967, on assignment to London for the book Rock and Other Four-Letter Words, her photograph of Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, taken a year earlier at a New York press party, caught the eye of Brian Epstein, manager of the Beatles. He invited Eastman to photograph the band at the press launch of their new album, "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." She accepted the invitation to photograph the Beatles, met Paul McCartney, and, two years later, they married.

If Eastman's photographs of the 1960s defined a period of time, the era defined her as a photographer. She emerged from the decade as Linda McCartney and went on to become one of the most distinguished woman photographers of the last half of the 20th century. She was voted 1967 U.S. Photographer of the Year by Women in Photography and had her work exhibited at New York's International Center of Photography, the Museum of the City of San Francisco, the San Diego Museum of Photographic Art, and in art galleries on both the East and West Coast.

In England, where she made her home with Paul McCartney and their four children, her work was singled out for three separate exhibitions by the Royal Photographic Society and was shown at the National Museum of Photography and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Her photographs of Paul McCartney and fellow Beatle John Lennon hang in the National Portrait Gallery in London's Trafalgar Square. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide and has been published in numerous magazines. Her books include Linda's Photos, Sun Prints, Roadworks, and Wide Open, which showcases the last exhibition she worked on before her death from breast cancer in 1998.

An exhibition of her work, "Linda McCartney's Sixties--Portrait of an Era," is highlighted by portraits of bands and musicians who have become icons of 20th-century popular music. Included are Jimi Hendrix, Aretha Franklin, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Janis Joplin, Ray Charles the Grateful Dead, and, of course, the Beatles.

The exhibition will be on view at the Fort Wayne (Ind.) Museum of Art through May 27. It will travel to the Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill, N.C. (June 10-Aug. 19); Bedford Gallery, Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek, Calif. (Sept. 12-Nov. 4); Southern Vermont Art Center, Manchester (June 29-Aug. 24, 2002); Buddy Holly Center, City of Lubbock (Tex.) Arts Center (Jan. 20-Feb. 28, 2003); and Phoenix (Ariz.) Central Library (Apr. 4-May 31, 2003).

Gabriele A. Abbott is guest curator of the exhibition "Linda McCartney's Sixties--Portrait of an Era," in cooperation with the estate of Linda McCartney.