McCartney\'s Art Exhibition
 

Here are a few articles about Macca's new exhibition in Liverpool.

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From Ananova.

McCartney returns to his school-skipping gallery haunt

Sir Paul McCartney says his wedding plans are "going fine."



The former Beatle was speaking at a preview of his first major UK art exhibition at Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery.

He says he often "hung out" in the gallery with John Lennon in the '60s when the pair were skipping school.

McCartney said he believed the late Beatle would have been "quite chuffed" with his work. "The time I really hung out here was in the '60s with John going around all those big galleries. We used to come round here a lot in the afternoons probably sagging off school."

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From Yahoo.

McCartney's art goes back to roots

LIVERPOOL (Reuters) - Paul McCartney has returned to his Liverpool roots to launch a showcase of his art in the gallery he visited as a child with John Lennon.

One of northern England's main art galleries, the Walker, is exhibiting more than 60 of McCartney's works, including, for the first time, wooden sculptures.

"That I one day might have had an exhibition here would have been unthinkable then," McCartney, casual in a blue denim jacket and white T-shirt, said on Thursday.

The former Beatle took up painting 20 years ago, at the age of 40. Since then, he has produced some 600 pieces.

"For me it's an enjoyment thing," he told reporters. "I basically like to apply paint onto canvas. I just like the act of it -- I make it up as I go along."

"I really don't analyse them that much."

McCartney posed for photographers in front of Big Heart, a brightly coloured painting of a heart created in 1999, after he met his fiancee, Heather Mills. However, he declined to give any details of their June wedding.

McCartney's first exhibition was held in Siegen, Germany three years ago. The show in Liverpool is his first major exhibition in Britain.

He said he wanted visitors to the gallery to enjoy the images, the colours and the freedom of his paintings.

Some art critics slam his work. McCartney says they are entitled to their opinions.

"Life can be boring if you just stick to the same old things," he said, fresh from a solo tour of the United States.

McCartney and Mills are due to marry on June 6 in a star-studded ceremony in New York, a match that he has said his children have found difficult to accept.

He has said he "cried for a year" after his wife Linda died of breast cancer in 1998.

"I think a second marriage is hard for the children," he said earlier this month. "But it's how it is and how it must be, and I think that more than anything they want me to be happy -- and this is what makes me happy."

Former swimwear model Mills lost a leg below her knee in 1993 after she was hit by a police motorcycle in central London. She went on to fundraise for amputees and landmine charities.


And here's a link to some pics from the show.


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"I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and myself and I hoped we passed the audition." - John Lennon

[This Message Has Been Edited By lucyinthesky_84 On May 23, 2002 02:35 PM]

Re: McCartney\'s Art Exhibition
 

I found an article on the Associated Press too:

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MAY 23, 13:33 ET
McCartney's First Art Show Opens

By GRAHAM HEATHCOTE
Associated Press Writer

LIVERPOOL, England (AP) — As a youth, Paul McCartney would skip school with fellow Beatle John Lennon and the two would go visit a local art gallery. McCartney has returned to the same gallery for the first comprehensive exhibition of his art.

The show of some 70 paintings by McCartney, dating from 1987 to 2001, opens Friday at the Walker Art Gallery and runs through Aug. 1 in the singer-songwriter's home town.

``I used to come here as a schoolboy,'' McCartney said. ``If I had said to John then, `I'm going to have an exhibition here one day,' I think I know what he would have said. I'll leave it to your imagination.''

Casually dressed in a T-shirt, denim jacket, black trousers and sandals, McCartney, who turns 60 next month, looked relaxed and fit. He chatted affably as a media throng stood, kneeled and squatted before him at a preview Thursday of the exhibition.

McCartney's brightly colored and slapdash paintings are shown with six sculptures made from driftwood. None of the works, taken from his homes in Britain and the United States, are up for sale.

His canvases depict landscapes, shells, flowers, people with often wild faces and Celtic mythology — McCartney has Irish roots. Most of the pictures are sunny but several are dark and mysterious. One, ``Bowie Spewing,'' shows fellow pop icon David Bowie being sick.

However, McCartney did not claim to be a great painter. ``I'm not out to show the world what I can do. I'm not trying to impress anybody except myself. I think I've shown the world enough already,'' he said.

As for the critics, McCartney said he wasn't very interested in their opinions.

``Some will like them and some won't. They're entitled to their opinions but I never read them,'' he said. ``I really just do it for my own enjoyment. There's so much to learn, that's half the fun.''

Julian Treuherz, keeper of the Walker, said the gallery was planning to limit the large crowds expected.

The Walker opened in 1877 and is filled with the works of such old masters as Rembrandt van Rijn and Nicholas Poussin, and the pre-Raphaelites. The gallery has a long tradition of displaying local artists' work.

McCartney retains a house in Liverpool, which he visits regularly; his composition, ``Oratorio,'' has been performed in Liverpool Cathedral.

His art was first seen in 1999 in Siegen, Germany, where a local gallery persuaded him to do a show and the enthusiastic response let him know there was an interested public.

Michael Simpson, the former curator of modern art at the Walker who selected the paintings on display, said McCartney's work was all about heart.

``Love and passion are resonant themes in his music and so, too, now in his paintings. Without heart, art is not art, it is meaningless,'' said Simpson.

Among the abstract paintings is a large red heart with the figure of a female nude scratched on the surface titled ``Big Heart, 1999.'' It is one of the few works in the show painted by McCartney since meeting his fiancee, Heather Mills, after the death of his wife, Linda.

``Big hearts is what Paul and Linda said they most wanted for their children, and a big heart is now what he plainly has for Heather,'' said Joe Cooper, the Walker's communications manager.

``The Kiss,'' shows McCartney kissing Linda and ``Hottest Linda,'' depicts his late wife sunbathing.

McCartney won an art prize for a drawing of a church when he was 11 but he only began painting seriously 20 years ago. The exhibition will only be shown in Liverpool, where all four Beatles were born, grew up and came together as a band.


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Rooftop Sessions - The Finest In Beatles-Related Fiction. www.rooftopsessions.com May 2002 Issue Now Up!

"O superb! O Manhattan, my own, my peerless! O strongest you in the hour of danger, in crisis! O truer than steel!" -- Walt Whitman

Re: McCartney\'s Art Exhibition
 

Thanks for the article and the pic.

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Song of the moment-I Need You

shyGirl's Hideout

Re: McCartney\'s Art Exhibition
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Arial, Sans-Serif">Quote:</font><HR>Originally Posted By another poster:

Paul McCartney IS a work of art himself. Paul is a masterpiece.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No comment.


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just a few days!

Re: McCartney\'s Art Exhibition
 

Here's another article from the Daily Record.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/pa...l&siteid=89488

PAINTER PAUL GIVES HIS CRITICS THE BRUSH-OFF
May 24 2002

HE has been called the world's greatest songwriter, but the critics aren't so keen on Sir Paul McCartney's paintings.

Art snobs denounced Macca's work as rubbish yesterday as he prepared to put it on show in Liverpool.

But the Beatles legend says he doesn't care. He's particularly proud of his painting of a big red heart, called, er, Big Heart, which is dedicated to fiancee Heather Mills.

Sir Paul said: "I don't take painting very seriously. I just do it for my own fun.

"Some people don't like it. They think I'm getting a bit uppity, but I just enjoy painting."

He added: "Heather's favourite painting is Big Heart. It does signify the new love in my life and even though people are criticising it, I just don't care."

Paul and Heather will marry this year.

His show of 70 art works opens tonight with a private viewing at the Walker gallery, where he used to go with John Lennon as a boy.




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"I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and myself and I hoped we passed the audition." - John Lennon

Re: McCartney\'s Art Exhibition
 

Wow, and he's 60? I would never have guessed his age, if I didn't know

Thanks, lucy!

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"Because there wasn't any reason left to keep it all inside"
- Paul McCartney, 1982

Re: McCartney\'s Art Exhibition
 

I don't think those critics know much about art. I think his paintings are very expressive and interesting. The one with the heart is kind of messy, I still like it.

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Re: McCartney\'s Art Exhibition
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Arial, Sans-Serif">Quote:</font><HR>Originally Posted By lucyinthesky_84:
HE has been called the world's greatest songwriter<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

what?!?!?!


And if he paints "just for fun," then why does he display it everywhere and write books about it?


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14 days!

Re: McCartney\'s Art Exhibition
 

Some few more updates
http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0...31&method=full


Sir Paul McCartney attends his first British show in the gallery he loved to visit as a teenager

SOMEONE in the media throng said the man they were all waiting for must be the most famous man in the world now, ahead of the President of the USA and even the Pope.

Even so, Sir Paul McCartney had a shy smile when he arrived at the grand gallery in his native city to attend the media preview of his first British exhibition.

Among the press were the critics, some of whom weren't very kind about his anthology of poems, Blackbird Singing, published last year. But he wasn't going to let them limit his artistic ambitions.

Sir Paul drove himself to the rear entrance of the Walker in a blue Ford Mondeo with his bodyguard sitting in the passenger seat.

This meant that he missed the small cluster of fans standing at the front entrance of the neo-classical building paid for in 1877 by the brewer Sir Andrew Barclay Walker.

It was here that Paul viewed the work of the great masters with his pal John Lennon. They particularly favoured Benjamin West's Death of Nelson. They also admired the Pre-Raphaelites.

Yesterday Sir Paul paused before Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Beatrice, the perfect woman who died without knowing the painter's passion.

But in those days, before the Beatles helped to change social attitudes, only people who went to art school were considered to be serious painters.

All through his days of fame, Paul wondered about this. After all he couldn't read music, but his songs were sung wherever people gathered.

So about 17 years ago, encouraged by his late wife Linda, he decided to have a go at this art business. Sir Paul said he enjoyed the feel of paint spreading on canvas. Maybe he would have a real talent for pictures, as he did for melody and words.

Yesterday the fruit of those efforts was on display in rooms on the first floor of the gallery, where a £4.3m refurbishment was completed earlier this year.

On the same floor an exhibition called Turner's Journey of the Imagination also opened yesterday. To have your work hung near that of Joseph Mallord William Turner, Britain's finest landscape painter, was a great honour, even for a former Beatle.

Before Sir Paul, 60 next month, arrived, the media were allowed to inspect his paintings and sculptures. They belonged to different camps.

There were those interested in his private life and the forthcoming marriage to model Heather Mills on one side.

On the other were the critics. They were squinting through hands formed into squares, angling their heads, and moving back and forth to appreciate more fully Sir Paul's colours and designs.

A Valentine-style painting called Big Heart attracted both groups. The hope was that it was dedicated to Heather. To its right was a gloomier picture called Big Cactus Heart painted in 1997 when Linda was fighting the cancer that was to kill her.

Sir Paul dealt with the inevitable question about their inner meanings in the manner of one long-schooled in the ways of press conferences.

"I never get into that 'dark period' stuff," he said.

"People interpret them. That one is a bit darker than that. It's obvious. I can't remember many paintings where I am in a dark mood, but maybe that comes though. It's like a psychiatrist's couch.

"It all comes out in the wash. I don't analyse too much. I'd like to be able to. What you want me to say is that this represents the new love in my life and this represents the passing of the old. I am not sure that is exactly right, but I'll go along with that.

"I used to come round here a lot in the afternoons with John. I think if I had said to John 'I'm going to have an exhibition here one of these days'. I think I know what he would have said ... I'll leave it to your imagination."

Tanned and dressed in a denim jacket, white T-shirt, black trousers, and sandals from which emerged neatly-clipped nails, Sir Paul also carried a tiny camera in the watch on his left wrist.

It was with this that he had taken a photograph of Larry King, the American talk show host, when he was asking Sir Paul a "boring" question last year. That photograph with King in characteristic pose became the basis for one of the portraits in the exhibition.

Sir Paul chose the Walker for his only exhibition in the UK.

"I feel comfortable here," he said. "I like Liverpool. Some people kind of leave their hometown and turn their backs on it, but it's not the way its has been with me. I have a lot of family here. I like to reach Liverpool off the motorway. I like the people. I like to come back here. I feel a bit safe here."

Also close to home there were his memories of George Harrison, who died last year. Did George see any of his paintings? "Yeah, he did. He didn't see a lot of them. He didn't take a lot of interest. We never talked about it a lot. We talked about ukuleles," Sir Paul replied.

Inside, they were talking about textures and colours. Outside, Philip Blanchard, 40, a technical operator from Manchester, and his son 11-year-old son, James Paul, named after the former Beatle, were hoping that Sir Paul would autograph their £30 book of his paintings.

On Philip's left forearm he had his hero's name tattooed. Sadly, a 'c' was missing in McCartney.

"People have been taking the mickey for 18 months," he said.

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"Because there wasn't any reason left to keep it all inside"
- Paul McCartney, 1982

Re: McCartney\'s Art Exhibition
 

http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0...25&method=full

Culture capital backing May 24 2002




Daily Post


SIR Paul McCartney was joined by his fiancØe Heather Mills for the opening of his artwork exhibition at Liverpool's Walker Gallery last night.

Around 500 guests were at the launch prior to its opening to the public today.

Among them were film actress Rita Tushingham, Tony Blair's father-inlaw Anthony Booth, and Sir Paul's brother Mike.

Peter Blake, the pop artist who designed the cover of the Beatles' Album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, also attended.

Sir Paul and Ms Mills waved to a crowd of around 50 fans as they arrived, but there was no sign of his daughter Stella -she was spotted at the opening night of Madonna's West End play, Up for Grabs. .

Sporting a Capital of Culture badge , the Beatles legend said the city deserved to win the bid. "To me it has always been the capital of culture.

"People outside the city know about the Beatles and the music scene here, but they might not know the depth of what the city has to offer. The people themselves deserve to get it. They would make good hosts and hostesses."

Sir Paul also revealed he hoped to play live in the UK soon - possibly in Manchester...

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"Because there wasn't any reason left to keep it all inside"
- Paul McCartney, 1982

Re: McCartney\'s Art Exhibition
 

Thanks, Amal.

Here's yet another piece from BBC News.

Liverpool's renaissance Beatle
By Angela Heslop
BBC Radio Merseyside

Sir Paul McCartney's exhibition of paintings and sculptures at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool is the former Beatle's first British retrospective and has attracted worldwide attention.

But is it good art, or just hype? Entering the starkly white gallery I was immediately struck by his use of colour, bold reds, yellows and blues, splashed across large canvasses.

The subject matter is diverse, from Arizonan Landscapes to Paul's Merseyside upbringing and his late wife Linda.

A sense of humour and enjoyment of life are strongly represented in the works. I particularly enjoyed Egypt Station which sees a number of objects including sunflowers and a seated dog waiting for a train that never arrives.

Vast open spaces are a favourite of the artist, and Red Triangle Sand is one such example, full of light and colour.

Unlike John Lennon, Paul McCartney didn't go to art school and that inhibited his confidence. This changed on meeting American artist William de Kooning, whose free and easy style of painting appealed to Paul. From the late 1980s he started to paint regularly.

His interest in art was encouraged by Linda McCartney and she features in several works in the exhibition. There's a striking portrait Hottest Linda and another Yellow Linda With Piano.

Artist Peter Blake has supported Sir Paul's desire to paint, although you won't see any influences in the exhibition; if there is any resemblance to work by another artist, then it's the surrealist Magritte.

The catalogue accompanying the exhibition mentions gallery owner Robert Fraser visiting Paul in London and leaving behind a small painting by Magritte.

It showed a big green apple, with Au Revoir written across the canvas, and that formed the basis for the world famous Apple logo.

Much of the art on show is refreshing and vibrant and visitors to the Walker have been reacting favourably to the paintings and sculptures.

Some are surprised that Sir Paul has been able to produce such work, others are delighted to see another talent displayed by their renaissance man.


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"I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and myself and I hoped we passed the audition." - John Lennon

Re: McCartney\'s Art Exhibition
 

What the heck is uppity about a guy who wants to paint?! Heck, anybody who wants to paint and has that freedom of creative expression should just take advantage of that and paint! I think it's wonderful that Paul has all of these creative outlets.

And yeah, I do think Paul is one helluva songwriter. Keep on rocking, Paul!

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Then we will remember things we said today. Yeah.
-- Beatles, 1964

Read www.rooftopsessions.com for high caliber Beatles fan fiction.

BB1964

Re: McCartney\'s Art Exhibition
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Arial, Sans-Serif">Quote:</font><HR>Originally Posted By beatlebangs1964:
I think it's wonderful that Paul has all of these creative outlets.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


Interesting...


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14 days!

Re: McCartney\'s Art Exhibition
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Arial, Sans-Serif">Quote:</font><HR>Originally Posted By 4thGenFan:
Interesting...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It's interesting you find it interesting



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"Because there wasn't any reason left to keep it all inside"
- Paul McCartney, 1982

Re: McCartney\'s Art Exhibition
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Arial, Sans-Serif">Quote:</font><HR>Originally Posted By Amalthea:
It's interesting you find it interesting

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It's interesting that you think it's interesting that I find it interesting.



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14 days!

Re: McCartney\'s Art Exhibition
 

It's interesting how you guys find things that are interesting about being interesting of intresting things.

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Re: McCartney\'s Art Exhibition
 

Maccarose you have peak my interest!
I'd say that is quite interesting!

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McCartney Fan from NY area

Re: McCartney\'s Art Exhibition
 

The art looks ok, but the guy standing in front of the art looks AWESOME!

I'd love to have Paul pose as living sculpture in my house!

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"Oh that magic feeling, no place to go..."

"I can see the world tonight, Look into the future, See it in a different light. I can see the world tonight."

Re: McCartney\'s Art Exhibition
 

Some other material... here
http://mccartney.yahoo.com/

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"Because there wasn't any reason left to keep it all inside"
- Paul McCartney, 1982

Re: McCartney\'s Art Exhibition
 

Nice pic of Paul & Big Heart, and he in his gallery plus a quite nice article
http://www.msnbc.com/news/756553.asp?0dm=N13PL&cp1=1

And another critic article, I got through email (no link, sorry)

McCartney's art: time, identity, passion and love

CRITIQUE

NEIL CAMERON


IT WOULD be easy to say Sir Paul McCartney's paintings were only being shown
in Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery because he is a former Beatle.

Easy, and also true. McCartney is essentially a self-taught amateur artist
and these are not the usual prerequisites of being shown in a major public
gallery that likes to style itself "the National Gallery of the North".

But McCartney is a former Beatle - that cannot be divorced from the equation
and nor should it. What makes this an interesting spectacle is in large part
due to how his art adds to our understanding of someone who is,
unquestionably, one of the key figures in modern popular culture. So
complaining that he does not deserve this treatment because he is not a
professional artist is to completely miss the point. Your position in the
art world does not really matter if your name is Paul McCartney.

It is entirely appropriate that it should be a gallery in Liverpool that is
showing the work, cementing McCartney's life-long connection with the city.
I would predict that this exhibition will be the most popular exhibition
that has ever been held in the Walker Art Gallery, and it should help to
attract many visitors who might not otherwise ever have ventured through its
portals.

But is it a credible aesthetic experience or just another example of our
obsession with celebrity? It boils down to the question: "are they any
good?"

The answer is that they are. Not great art, not especially innovative, but
credible in the context of a public gallery. They are certainly not an
embarrassment to McCartney, nor to the exhibition curators.

One of the interesting aspects of the work is how it amplifies many of the
key themes of McCartney's music - identity, time, passion and love.
Appropriately, one of the most prominent works (dedicated to his fiancée,
Heather Mills), is entitled Big Heart.

This is actually one of the weaker paintings - a little too obvious and too
much like the kind of thing we've all doodled on the backs of school
jotters. This one is just a bit bigger and uses vibrant, gestural
brushstrokes. But for all it might be a little hackneyed, it does convey a
sense of something genuinely heartfelt and this encapsulates one of the
ingredients which makes the show credible - a palpable sincerity and
earnestness.

Occasionally this can stray off into schmaltz, as with his painting Loves
Termes, which is a rather twee work using 17th-century language in the
manner of John Donne combined with a pattern of outlined leaves.

The most successful works are the more emphatic, expressive pieces which use
broad brushstrokes - paintings such as Big Mountain Face, Brains on Fire and
Robot and Star from the mid-Nineties- which seem to show him letting go and
allowing himself real emotional release. These charged, elemental works look
as though he has lost himself in the act of creating. They are less
contrived than some of the more romantic works and have all the hallmarks of
art as a form of catharsis. It is probable that these reflect something of
the effects of his wife Linda's illness and death, and it was Linda who
first encouraged McCartney to take up painting.

Overall, McCartney's work is surprisingly varied and the 70 paintings on
show reflect influences from tribal art to Expressionism. You can also
detect the influence of some famous names such as Picasso, Francis Bacon and
David Hockney.

Yet what comes through, beyond all the obvious reference-points, is the
character of McCartney as we know him from his music. The passion is still
there, even if the means to express it have changed.

Exhibition continues until 4 August

Neil Cameron is visual arts critic, The Scotsman

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"Because there wasn't any reason left to keep it all inside"
- Paul McCartney, 1982