Linda McCartney: Life in Photographs

In 1966, during a brief stint as a receptionist for Town and Country magazine, Linda Eastman snagged a press pass to a very exclusive promotional event for the Rolling Stones aboard a yacht on the Hudson River. With her fresh, candid photographs of the band, far superior to the formal shots made by the band’s official photographer, Linda secured her name as a rock ’n’ roll photographer. Two years later, in May 1968, she entered the record books as the first female photographer to have her work featured on the cover of Rolling Stone with her portrait of Eric Clapton. She went on to capture many of rock’s most important musicians on film, including Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Simon & Garfunkel, The Who, The Doors, and the Grateful Dead.

In 1967, Linda went to London to document the “Swinging Sixties,” where she met Paul McCartney at the Bag ’O Nails club and subsequently photographed The Beatles during a launch event for the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Paul and Linda fell in love, and were married on March 12, 1969. For the next three decades, until her untimely death, she devoted herself to her family, vegetarianism, animal rights, and photography.

From her early rock ’n’ roll portraits, through the final years of The Beatles, to raising four children with Paul, Linda captured her whole world on film. Her shots range from spontaneous family pictures to studio sessions with Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson, as well as encounters with artists Willem de Kooning and Gilbert and George. Always unassuming and fresh, her work displays a warmth and feeling for the precise moment that captures the essence of any subject. Whether photographing her children, celebrities, animals, or a fleeting moment of everyday life, she did so without pretension or artifice.

This retrospective volume is a lasting and deeply personal testament to Linda's talent, produced in close collaboration with the McCartney family, with forewords by Paul, Stella, and Mary McCartney.