LONDON.- Mary McCartney is set to take over Sotheby’s gallery on New Bond Street with her forthcoming exhibition ‘Can We Have a Moment? Three Decades of Photographs in Britain’ this March - the artist’s first major survey of her works in the UK. All taken over the last thirty years, the exhibition will feature around 30 works, all of which McCartney describes as “unexpected moments”, captured on her camera in a split second, yet each carrying their own narrative waiting to be unraveled. From tender portraits to poignant images of nature, those taken behind-the-scenes or from inside an artist’s studio, together these images capture a vision of Britain through the lens of one of today’s most exciting photographers.

McCartney’s love for photography began at an early age. Her mother, Linda McCartney, was also a photographer and always, in Mary’s own words, “with a camera on her shoulder observing life and capturing moments”. Straight after leaving school, McCartney joined Omnibus Press, the music book publishing company, as a picture editor working on a David Bowie publication. As part of her research, McCartney would approach different photographers, go to their archives, and trawl through their contact sheets, which quickly deepened her love for the medium. Speaking of her passion, McCartney said: “From a young age, I would walk around and look at things as if they were a picture, thinking about what something might look like in one standalone, frozen moment or what sort of photograph would capture the essence of a particular emotion? This is still what really drives me. I am still passionately looking for those moments and collecting them.”

Inspired by Sotheby’s upcoming ‘Made in Britain’ auction (on view concurrently with ‘Can We Have A Moment?’), McCartney's exhibition will be solely dedicated to photographs taken around the UK, some of which have never been exhibited before, including: Glastonbury (2007); Snug (2016), taken from inside one of McCartney’s favourite pubs; Mushroom Family (2021), an image of a huddle of natural fungi spotted during one of McCartney’s walks in nature, and a photograph of an outdoor mural of Samuel Beckett (2008), to name just a few. Taking her first ever contact sheet as a starting point, McCartney looked through all 5,000 plus that followed, selecting images which she felt both embodied the “best of Britain”, as well as those works that naturally form connections with one another.

"I'm always working to make a connection with the person I'm photographing.” --Mary McCartney

McCartney hopes that the viewer’s eye will travel around the exhibition, drawing links between some of these works, and the emotions - such as humour, intimacy, poignancy, sorrow and fun - they can unwittingly evoke as they stand before them. Among the photographs to be exhibited at Sotheby’s, for instance, is Being Frida (2000) - a portrait of Tracey Emin sat in bed, dressed up and channeling the late Frida Kahlo, an artist Emin admits to always having felt such a strong connection with. In this exhibition, it will be shown besides other works featuring a bed, such as Lucian Freud, Bed (2008) and Mum’s Side of the Bed (1996) - a motif that McCartney is continually drawn to, and its ability to evoke the presence of a human even when not in plain sight. Please find further highlights below.

‘Can We Have a Moment? Three Decades of Photographs in Britain’ forms part of Sotheby’s ‘(Women)Artists’ campaign, running through to the end of March 2023. In celebration of International Women’s Day (8 March), Sotheby’s will be staging a series of related events, panel discussions and sales, culminating in a “takeover” of its London galleries, with a public exhibition dedicated exclusively to the work of female artists - including ‘Can We Have a Moment’.