Paul McCartney bedroom selfie in backstage Beatles photo exhibit

Photographs taken by Paul McCartney during the early rise of Beatlemania will be showcased in central London later this month.

The exhibition, titled Rearview Mirror: Liverpool–London–Paris, will be shown at the Gagosian Gallery on Davies Street from 28 August until 4 October.

The photographs, taken on McCartney’s 35mm Pentax camera, chronicle a close-up look at the Beatles as their reputation spread beyond Liverpool ahead of their debut visit to the US.

The black and white photos are a look at the in-between moments in the band’s trajectory, from their 1963 UK tour, to their first as headliners and three-week residency at the Olympia Theatre in Paris, the Gagosian said.

The free exhibition features a self-portrait of McCartney reflected in the mirror of an attic room in the London family home of his then-girlfriend, Jane Asher. It was there that he dreamed the melody for “Yesterday”.

Backstage scenes show the band at the Lewisham Odeon, London Palladium, and Finsbury Park Astoria, as well as the moments before the band’s transatlantic flight took off for New York.

The photographs were remastered from original negatives and contact sheets thought to have been lost for over half a century. Some have been presented as contact sheets rather than individual frames.