Linda McCartney Photography

Linda McCartney (American 1941-1998) "Autumn" 1987 From the Sun Prints series 9.5 x 8 blue cyanotype signed on the image sheet size 14.5 x 16 matt size 15 x 18.75 used for book Sun Prints page 64 Jane Corkin gallery label on verso. Biography: Linda Louise McCartney (née Eastman) was born in Scarsdale, New York, on 24th September 1941. She graduated from Scarsdale High School, Westchester County, New York in 1960, and went on to study at the University of Arizona, where she majored in art history. Although her formal training extended to just two lessons on photography that she attended at a night school whilst studying as an art history major at the University of Arizona, the pictures by Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and Edward Weston that she discovered there – along with her later introduction to the photography of Edward Steichen – inspired and influenced Linda’s work. Linda was also fascinated by the history of photography and honoured the early photographic pioneer William Henry Fox by producing handcrafted cyanotype prints. Linda experimented with other printing processes throughout her career as well as producing thousands of Polaroids. Linda got her first big break as a photographer while working as an editorial receptionist at Town and Country Magazine. She used an unwanted invitation to a Rolling Stones promotional party on the SS Sea Panther on the Hudson River to document the event and photograph the band. The magazine was so impressed with Linda’s candid, intimate and relaxed photographs of the Rolling Stones that they published her images in an editorial feature – her first of many magazine commissions. Linda became a professional photographer in the mid-sixties. Her pictures during this period chronicled the musical revolution of the decade. Whilst working as the house photographer at the Fillmore East in New York City she photographed many iconic musicians including; The Rolling Stones, Otis Redding, B.B. King, The Doors, The Grateful Dead, Frank Zappa, The Beach Boys, The Who, Cream, The Kinks, Traffic, The Byrds and Jimi Hendrix. Linda’s photograph of Eric Clapton for Rolling Stone magazine’s 11th May 1968 issue made her the first female photographer to have work featured on the magazine’s cover In 1967, after being named US female photographer of the year, Linda was in London to shoot an assignment on the ‘Swinging Sixties’. Linda met Paul McCartney at the Bag O’Nails Club and then again four days later at the launch of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band at Brian Epstein’s house in Belgravia. A year later they married at Marylebone Registry Office, London, March 12th, 1969. After receiving credits on Paul’s solo album RAM, Linda joined Paul on stage, as keyboard player and vocalist, in Wings. Throughout her time in Wings Linda documented her travels and family life on and off stage. She went on to write and record several songs of her own, including ‘Seaside Woman’, released in 1977 through Epic Records in the US, under the band name Suzy and The Red Stripes. Linda’s album Wide Prairie was release posthumously in 1998. In 1989, Linda began to pioneer another passion, to save the lives of animals through promoting the vegetarian lifestyle that she and Paul and long embraced. Her first two vegetarian cookbooks...