Yesterday, Gagosian opened Rearview Mirror: Liverpool–London–Paris, an exhibition of photographs by Paul McCartney, at its Davies Street gallery, in London. The show presents rare images taken by McCartney between December 1963 and February 1964, a pivotal period when The Beatles’ fame was breaking beyond Liverpool and Hamburg and “Beatlemania” was taking hold.

Shot with a 35mm Pentax camera McCartney had just acquired, the photographs capture the band from the inside, both candid and historic. They document life on tour across the UK and in Paris, just weeks before the group’s debut visit to the United States. Key moments punctuate the series: the band’s first UK headline tour, their record-breaking appearance on the BBC’s Juke Box Jury, The Beatles Christmas Show, and a three-week residency at Paris’s Olympia Theatre.

Highlights include a self-portrait of McCartney reflected in a mirror at the London home of his then-girlfriend Jane Asher, where he later composed “Yesterday,” as well as backstage scenes at the Lewisham Odeon, London Palladium, and Finsbury Park Astoria. Enlarged contact sheets provide further glimpses of unguarded moments—including the tense hours before the band’s first transatlantic flight to New York.

The photographs, remastered from negatives and contact sheets long thought lost, are each signed by McCartney, produced in small editions, and presented in bespoke frames of his design.

The exhibition follows McCartney’s debut at Gagosian Beverly Hills earlier this year and coincides with the touring exhibition Paul McCartney Photographs 1963–64: Eyes of the Storm, currently on view at the de Young, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

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Image: Paul McCartney, Self-portraits in a mirror at the George V Hotel, Paris, January 1964 (detail). Photo: © Paul McCartney, Courtesy the artist and Gagosian