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"My big break was in June 1966 with the Rolling Stones. This was a session which came about more of less by accident, as did so many good things at that time." . Linda McCartney

This is how Linda McCartney begins her book The Sixties - Portrait of an Era. It was also the beginning of her photographic career, which was to span more than three decades. During that time she not only widened her view from the world of Sixties rock music to include landscapes, still lifes and portraits of everyday life as she encountered it, she also developed her technical skills, not just in taking the picture but also in developing it. Her experiments with making sun prints, a photographic developing process dating back to the early years of photography in the nineteenth century, earned her the distinction of having her work exhibited at the Royal Photographic Society in Bath, England.

The exhibition Linda McCartney's Sixties: Portrait of an Era is a selection of 50 photographs of some of the greatest names in the world of rock music captured in black and white on exquisite platinum prints and silvertone, and in color. Among the bands and musicians portrayed are those that have become icons of twentieth century popular music: Jimi Hendrix, Aretha Franklin, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, B.B. King, Janis Joplin, Ray Charles, the Beatles, the Grateful Dead and Otis Redding.

McCartney covered the music scene of the Sixties first as house photographer of New York's Fillmore East concert hall, and then as the first photographer of the budding Rolling Stone magazine. Combining photography with her love of rock and roll, she specialized in capturing the character of the new British and West Coast bands as they visited New York. In clubs and nightspots she photographed the likes of The Doors and The Who before they catapulted to stardom. McCartney was there, at recording sessions and rehearsals, back stage, on tour and in concert, an accepted "band member whose instrument was the camera," as she once put it. Her unposed portraits capture the spirit not only of her subjects but that of the live-for-the-moment decade.

Portrait of an Era is the first museum show of her work in the United States since her death in April 1998. It is also the first time that a powerful selection of her portraits of the icons of twentieth century popular music is going on a nationwide tour in her native country. Timed to coincide with the turn of the century, this exhibition serves as an eloquent testimony of a defining decade of this century. Linda McCartney was there and many who will see her photographs will be there with her - those who experienced the Sixties and those who wish they had.

Organized by the Estate of Linda McCartney in cooperation with the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, Portrait of an Era's showing in Chapel Hill is made possible by the William Hayes Ackland Trust. An opening reception, free and open to the public, will be held Sunday, June 10 from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Gabriele Abbott
Guest Curator