UNC-CH Student
Press Releases:
• June 12
• June 13
• June 13

These press releases were written by UNC students enrolled in news writing classes taught by Barbara Barnett and Jan Yopp at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Kathryn Klein
JOMC 53
June 12, 2001

She stood there, camera in hand, the wind delicately blowing her hair across her face, with the New York City skyline and the Hudson River in the background, looking mysteriously into the face of the camera with an air of confidence as if to say, "This . this is my element."

This photograph of Linda McCartney currently is hanging in Ackland Art Museum on the University campus promoting her almost 50-picture traveling exhibition. Entitled "Linda McCartney's Sixties - Portrait of an Era," the collection showcases candid photographs of some of the greatest names in the world of rock music. The images were captured in black and white on platinum prints and silvertone, and in color, wrote Gabriele Abbott, the museum's guest curator.

"Her unposed portraits capture the spirit not only of her subjects but that of the live-for-the-moment decade," said Abbott.

Some of the featured icons include Judy Collins, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, the Beatles and many more.

"I would sometimes wonder why she didn't shoot 36 versions of a subject, like so many photographers I had been used to but was always delighted when she explained with a smile that it wasn't necessary. 'No. I got it,' she'd say. She knew," wrote her husband and former Beatle Paul McCartney. "She achieved intimacy partly because, like all great photographers, Linda was there, at the heart of it, and also because she had an eye for honesty; she saw the truth."

As McCartney said herself, her photos capture the moment; they capture time. Role models Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans and Ansel Adams inspired her to take "photographs of life," according to her video interview.

McCartney grew up in a middle-class family in Scarsdale, N.Y. In 1966, as an office assistant to Town and Country magazine in New York, Linda opened an invitation to a Rolling Stones' press event in the city and decided to attend, a University press release said. It was here she got her big break, photographing the event "by accident," McCartney claimed.

She went on to become house photographer for New York's Fillmore East music club and, later, the first photographer for a new magazine called Rolling Stone. In 1969, she married Paul McCartney, whom she had met through her work. In 1998, she died of breast cancer.

"Portrait of an Era: North American Tour 1999-2002" is the first museum showing of her work in the United States since her death, and it is the first time her work has been on a nationwide tour in her native country, added Abbott.

The exhibition is free, open to the public, and will be in Chapel Hill until Aug. 19. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and 1 to 5 p.m. on Sundays. In addition, the town of Chapel Hill is coordinating upcoming social events that continue with the '60s theme. For more information, call the museum at 406-9837 (recorded information), 966-5736 (voice) or 962-0837 (TTY), or visit the museum Web site at www.ackland.org.