LINDA MCCARTNEY PHOTOS AT PHILLIPS DE PURY

When she wasn't being wife and sometime backup singer for Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney (1941-1998) was an active rock photographer whose archive contains a reported 200,000 images of icons like Jimi Hendrix, Mick Jagger and, of course, the Beatles. Now, Sir Paul has selected 26 of her prints -- his favorites, supposedly -- which are being displayed and sold for the first time in “Life in Photographs,” June 7-16, 2011 at Phillips de Pury & Company in London. Prices range from £2,500-£10,000.

Linda McCartney (b. 1941) got her first big break -- while working as a receptionist at Town and Country Magazine -- shooting a Rolling Stones promotional party aboard a boat on the Hudson River. She went on to document the musical revolution of the 1960s as the house photographer for New York City’s Fillmore East, eventually shooting the most iconic of the period’s musicians, including The Kinks, The Doors, Otis Redding, B.B. King, The Grateful Dead, Cream and many others. But while the majority of images in the sale include high-profile rockstars on the road and backstage, there are also a number of more intimate shots which reveal the life of the McCartneys at home as a family.

Phillips is thinking big with this project -- prints can be had measuring as large as 10 x 6 ft. The photographs are being made available in three sizes: 20 x 24 inches, in an edition of 12; 6 x 5 ft., in an edition of three; and 10 x 6 ft., in an edition of one each. Presumably, collectors of rock photos like to have one large enough to fill a studio wall.

contact