'I can think of no one else who captured the essence better than Linda,' Paul writes

Paul McCartney's wife Linda Eastman McCartney amassed a major portfolio of photographs of rock musicians from the 1960s to the 1990s


'Who was the most important photographer covering the sixties' rock and roll music scene? I can think of no one else whose work was so comprehensive and who captured the essence better than Linda,' Paul McCartney writes about his wife who died tragically of breast cancer at 56.

Paul McCartney remembers his adored wife who died in 1998 with portraits from this family album he states is a testament to her artistic talent.

Linda's passion for music inspired her to work independently and she amassed a major portfolio of photographs of rock musicians from the 1960s to the 1990s.

Linda Eastman McCartney was born in New York City in 1941 and raised in suburban Westchester County.

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Lovely Linda: Eastman met Paul McCartney in London in 1967 at the Bag O'Nails Club. They met up again days later at the launch album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.The couple married in March 1969, had four children together and remained close until her untimely death of advancing breast cancer at age fifty-six in 1998

Paul, the last of the Beatles to marry poses with his bride Linda Eastman and her daughter Heather after their wedding

She was not related to the George Eastman family of Eastman Kodak fame. Rather, her father, Leopold Vail Epstein, was the son of Jewish Russian immigrants and had changed his name to Lee Eastman.

After high school, Linda headed west and was living in Arizona where a friend encouraged her to take an art history course at the Tucson Art Center with Hazel Archer.

Archer introduced Linda to the great photographers Walker Evan, Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams and told Eastman to 'Borrow a camera, buy a roll of film and take pictures'.

'She inspired me to become a photographer, because of the photographs she showed me, unlike fashion photography, they were photographs of life, of people, of sadness, of poverty, of nature, everything – I loved it'.

Back in Manhattan, Linda's photographic break came while working as a receptionist at Town and Country Magazine.

She used an extra invite to a Rolling Stone promotional party to shoot pictures of the band. That was the beginning of her career chronicling the musical revolution of the Sixties.

She met Paul McCartney in London in 1967 at the Bag O'Nails Club and met up again days later at the launch of their album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

The couple married in March 1969, had four children together and remained close until her untimely death of advancing breast cancer at age fifty-six in 1998.

These photographs appear in Life In Photographs by Linda McCartney and, in a new edition of the book published by Taschen.

Paul McCartney appears to be flying while diving into a swimming pool on vacation in Jamaica in 1971. He wrote the song 'Bluebird', apparently inspired by the act of 'flying,' with Linda and Denny Laine providing background harmony

Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw, Jamaica, 1973. Ali was Steve's second wife and the couple fell in love on the set of the film, The Getaway, 1972, in which she played his wife. They married the following year but the union only lasted five years. McQueen did not want his wife to make movies while they were together and allegedly cheated on Ali

Linda first met and photographed the Rolling Stones when she attended a Stones album promotional party on a freebie invite in 1966 that marked the beginning of her commercial photography career

Paul, Stella and James and Linda loved McCartney's modest farmhouse in High Park on the Kintyre Peninsula in Scotland in 1982. Paul bought the small farm after the breakup of the Beatles in 1970 and it saved him from the drug and the heavy drinking scene of London nightclubs. The simple lifestyle inspired him to write the song, The Long and Winding Road

The Beatles in London in 1968, a year after Linda and Paul first met. This was the first year that the Apple Boutique, a retail store located on the corner of Baker and Paddington Streets, opened in London, the first business undertaking by the Beatles under the name of Apple Corps. Paul described the shop as 'a beautiful place where beautiful people can buy beautiful things.' It closed that same year.











