CHAPEL HILL -- For the next two months, a Chapel Hill museum will offer its guests an insight into the lives of 1960s music legends, including Jimi Hendrix, Aretha Franklin, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Otis Redding.

            The Ackland Art Museum, located on South Columbia near Franklin Street, will be displaying “Linda McCartney’s Sixties: Portrait of an Era” until Aug. 19.

            The exhibition is a collection of 50 photographs taken by Linda McCartney that gives a unique insight into the performers of the sixties, on-stage and off.

            Portrait of an Era is the first time since McCartney’s death in April 1998 that museums have shown her photography. 

            The exhibition is also the first time a selection of her work will go on a nationwide tour of America.  The exhibition tour began in 1999 and will end in 2003.

            The exhibition contains some very powerful photographs of musicians performing on-stage as well as intimate portraits of the same artist when they are not performing.

            Every photograph is accompanied with a description of the subject and most also have quotes from McCartney.

            McCartney says that a blurry photograph of B.B. King performing on-stage “with his beloved guitar, ‘Lucille’, says it all for me.”  She adds that “his head looks as though it’s about to go into orbit.”

            Her photograph Four Strangers depicts the Beatles not interacting with each other, sitting on a door stoop.  “The music was still good, but the pressure of business had taken over,” McCartney says of the shot.

            In addition to the photograph by McCartney and her comments of her work the museum has the 49-minute video, “Linda McCartney Behind the Scenes”.

            The video covers McCartney’s photography career from its beginning.  The video also has interviews with several people who worked with McCartney during her career and some footage of McCartney and some of her subjects.

            In the video McCartney describes her photography as “capturing the moment, capturing time.”

The Ackland Art Museum is open Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

            The exhibition is free to the public.

            McCartney was born in 1941 in Scarsdale, NY.  She acquired a history of art at the University of Arizona.

            Dorthea Lange, Walker Evans and Ansel Adams introduced her to photography.  McCartney’s photography career lasted for over three decades.

*This editorial was writen on June 17, 2001 for a class

top