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- San Francisco Chronicle
Big news for Beatles fans: FAMSF extends Paul McCartney photo exhibition
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco has extended the popular photography exhibition ' Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm,' giving visitors nearly three additional months to catch the show.
Initially planned to run through July 6, at the de Young Museum, it will now be on view through Oct. 5 — marking the first time in its global tour that the show has been extended.
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Museum officials also promise more programming surrounding the exhibition, including a special screening of the acclaimed documentary miniseries 'McCartney 3, 2, 1' scheduled for June 21. Meanwhile, visitors have an opportunity to check out the show until 9:30 p.m. Thursday, June 12, as part of its Late Night Editions series that features live music and food trucks.
The exhibition was originally presented at the National Portrait Gallery in London in June 2023, and has traveled to the Brooklyn Museum and Portland Museum of Art. But the de Young is the show's only California stop.
The museum reports that in the first weeks after its March 1 opening, 'Eyes of the Storm' welcomed 85,000 attendees. FAMSF said that 100,000 have seen it overall.
The exhibition features more than 250 photos by the 82-year-old Beatles musician, along with archival footage and other images of the band. The photos were rediscovered in the artist's personal archive in 2020, and show the band's rise to global stardom from December 1963 through February 1964 during a tour that took them from local venues in Liverpool to their debut on 'The Ed Sullivan Show,' taped in New York and Miami. McCartney was 21 at the time, armed with a 35 mm Pentax single-lens reflex camera during the birth of what came to be known as 'Beatlemania.'
The Beatles formed in Liverpool, England, in 1960, with McCartney on the bass, guitarists John Lennon and George Harrison, and drummer Ringo Starr. The band is considered one of the most influential groups in music history, credited with helping usher in what became known as the British Invasion in the United States in the early '60s.
McCartney and Starr, 84, are the only living members of the band. Lennon was 40 when he was assassinated in 1980, and Harrison died at 58 of lung cancer in 2001.
During their decade together, the Beatles performed in the Bay Area three times — at the Cow Palace in Daly City in August 1964 and again in August 1965, and at Candlestick Park on Aug. 29, 1966. The San Francisco show was their final concert ever before the band broke up in 1970.
The de Young's decision to extend the exhibition is notable amid a time of uncertainty for art institutions nationwide, as many face major federal funding cuts and the Trump administration's ongoing efforts to dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
