Museum of Liverpool opens with exhibition of work by Paul McCartney's brother

From The Telgraph

Museum of Liverpool opens with exhibition of work by Paul McCartney's brother

The £72 million museum has opened with a retrospective of Mike McCartney's photography of famous Liverpool people and places.

All You Need is... Liverpool by Mike McCartney: "After a rip-stonkin' performance at Anfield for the 2008 European Capital of Culture celebrations our kid finally gives in! and waves goodbye to a delighted audience ...half of whom were our family!" Photo: Mike McCartney

By Florence Waters

11:39AM BST 20 Jul 2011

Paul McCartney's younger brother Mike was nicknamed "Flash Harry" by Beatles' manager Brian Epstein. His photographic repertoire includes pictures of The Beatles on tour, Bono backstage at Echo Arena, Ken Dodd's farewell concert, and famous landmarks in the city - including purple wheelie bins.

"It's a high honour when the National Portrait Gallery, the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC ask for your photographs. But it's the icing on the cake when your hometown asks for an exhibition to open their brand new Museum of Liverpool," he writes in his introduction to the show.
"I hope these images give some insight into the unique people this area produces, and that their impossible-to-suppress, self-deprecating humour shines out of the photographs."
Mike - who calls himself Mike McGear professionally in a bid to separate his work from his slightly more famous brother - also had a career in music. He was a member of the Liverpool comedy-poetry-music group The Scaffold, and also earned a living as a ladies' hairdresser.
The new Museum of Liverpool, described as the "largest newly-built national museum in Britain for more than a century".
Among the display of Beatles memorabilia in the museum’s Wondrous Place gallery is the stage where John Lennon and Paul McCartney first met in 1957, and immersive films about the band. It also contains the street sign from the soap opera Brookside Close, comedian Ken Dodd's tickling stick, and the first Ford Anglia off the Ford’s Halewood production line in 1963.

The 8,000 square metres museum opened its doors last night. They thought of asking Paul McCartney, a royal, a politician or a poet – but, in the end, it was opened by Finn O'Hare, a six-year-old-boy, who wrote to "Mr or Mrs In Charge of the Museum", explaining that he was "good at opening things".

Yoko Ono was one of the special guests at the opening. She had the chance to see the handcrafted All You Need Is Love bedspread presented to her and John Lennon by Hull-born designer Christine Kemp during their Bed-In at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal.

Information: www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/mol/