Paul McCartney's art show opens in his home town of Liverpool
GRAHAM HEATHCOTE
Canadian Press
Thursday, May 23, 2002
LIVERPOOL, England (AP) - Paul McCartney returned Thursday to the local art gallery he used to skip school to visit with fellow Beatle John Lennon - this time to open his own exhibition. The display of some 70 paintings dating from 1987 to 2001 at Liverpool's Walker art gallery in the singer's home town is his first comprehensive exhibition.
"I used to come here as a schoolboy," McCartney said. "If I had said to John then 'I'm going to have an exhibition here one day,' I think I know what he would have said. I'll leave it to your imagination."
Casually dressed in a T-shirt, denim jacket, black trousers, and sandals, McCartney, who will be 60 next month, looked relaxed and fit. He chatted affably as a media throng stood, kneeled and squatted before him at a preview of the show, opening Friday.
McCartney's brightly coloured and slapdash paintings, along with six sculptures made from driftwood, will be on display to the public until Aug. 1. None of the works, taken from his homes in Britain and the United States, are for sale.
His canvases depict landscapes, shells, flowers, people with often wild faces, and Celtic mythology - he has Irish roots.
Most of the pictures are sunny but several are dark and mysterious. One, Bowie Spewing, shows fellow pop icon David Bowie being sick.
The Walker, which opened in 1877 and is stuffed with old masters like Rembrandt van Rijn and Nicholas Poussin, and the pre-Raphaelites, has a long tradition of displaying local artists' work.
McCartney still has a house in Liverpool which he visits regularly. His composition, Oratorio, has been performed in Liverpool Cathedral.
But McCartney does not claim to be a great painter.
"I'm not out to show the world what I can do. I'm not trying to impress anybody except myself. I think I've shown the world enough already," he said.
As for the critics, McCartney claimed not to be interested in their opinions.
"Some will like them and some won't. They're entitled to their opinions but I never read them," said McCartney.
"I really just do it for my own enjoyment. There's so much to learn, that's half the fun."
His art was first seen in Siegen, Germany, in 1999 where a local gallery persuaded him to do a show and the enthusiastic response let him know there was an interested public.
Michael Simpson, the former curator of modern art at the Walker who selected the paintings on display, said McCartney's work was all about heart.
"Love and passion are resonant themes in his music and so too now in his paintings. Without heart, art is not art, it is meaningless," said Simpson.
Among the abstract paintings is a large red heart with the figure of a female nude scratched on the surface titled Big Heart, 1999. It is one of the few works in the show painted by McCartney since meeting his fiancee Heather Mills after the death of his wife Linda.
"Big Hearts is what Paul and Linda said they most wanted for their children and a big heart is now what he plainly has for Heather," said Joe Cooper, the Walker's communications manager.
The Kiss shows McCartney kissing Linda. Hottest Linda depicts his late wife sunbathing.
McCartney won an art prize for a drawing of a church when he was 11 but he only began painting seriously 20 years ago.
The exhibition will only be shown in Liverpool, where all four Beatles were born, grew up and came together as a band.
© Copyright 2002 The Canadian
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