Julian Lennon Curates a Beatles Photography Exhibit

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A Son's Tribute to the Beatles
Julian Lennon Curates a Beatles Photography Exhibit
By MARSHALL HEYMAN
The Wall Street journal
Feb. 3, 2014

On Thursday, the Morrison Hotel Gallery on Prince Street in SoHo will open a photography show celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Beatles coming to the U.S.

What separates this exhibit from other events of its ilk? It was curated by Julian Lennon, the son of John Lennon and Cynthia Powell and a photographer in his own right. (He is also represented by the Morrison Hotel Gallery, who put on his first exhibition in New York.)

The 50th anniversary had come up several times with Mr. Lennon but "it was all seeming too much of a muchness, you know?" he said the other day in a phone conversation from Europe before a several-day trip to Kenya and Ethiopia as part of his White Feather Foundation. "It was not only impossible to figure out who was doing this, that and the other, but I just decided to take a backseat and send my best wishes and love that way."

Then Timothy White, a photographer and a partner at the Morrison Hotel Gallery, came to Mr. Lennon with an idea to peruse a few hundred photos of his dad with the Beatles, pick out 25 or maybe 50, because it was the 50th anniversary. Mr. Lennon thought that was a good idea. (Twenty-five shots will be exhibited at the New York space and another 25 at a gallery in Los Angeles, at which Timothy White is a partner.)

"For me, this was a much more personal, emotional and respectful way of being involved, especially with photography as my number one passion these days," said Mr. Lennon. He attempted to find photographs that in particular "gave me an emotion and told me a bit more of the inside story and what these boys were feeling when they were going through what they were going through."

Mr. Lennon said he saw in some of the images "the look of anxiety or fear"; "a certain element of numbness"; and "the reality of the situation," i.e. popularity of the Beatles really "hitting them."

"What an incredible experience they had," said Mr. Lennon.

Write to Marshall Heyman at marshall.heyman@wsj.com


1963 image of the Beatles. King Collection/Photoshot/Getty Images