The Fab Four Exhibition

Fifty shots, never exhibited before, will be put for auction at Christie's in New York on Wednesday July 20th.

"There were more than 3,000 screaming teenagers at the airport. Many had skipped school or work. Some were in tears and were holding signs saying We love you, please stay".



It was February 7th 1964 and this is how BBC describes the first landing of the Beatles in the US, the beginning of Beatlemania in America.



The Fab Four’s first American show was scheduled for two days after. Waiting for them at the Union Station in Washington was the constant and usual crowd of teenagers seized by what was defined as collective hysteria.







Among the people attending the show that day was also the very young photographer Mike Mitchell, aged only 18. Pushing his way through the crowd he started taking pictures. From behind a huge security cordon he stole images leaving cheerful cries on the background and focusing on the clean faces of the 4 chaps from Liverpool who were about to conquer the world.





Mike Mitchell is unstoppable: he gets hold of a pass for the front stage of the Coliseum gig, he gets on stage with the band at the press conference, follows the four musicians to Baltimore and takes pictures of the September 13th gig, staying as closer as possible and takes numerous shots, beautiful close-ups on and off stage.





Mike Mitchell photographs and then prints his shots in black and white. Stunning, poetic, intimate shots. Instead of publishing them, he places the pictures in a drawer, locks it and keeps the shots there for almost half a century.



Fifty of such shots, never exhibited before, will be put for auction at Christie's in New York on Wednesday July 20th.



Their estimated price, starting from 500 to a maximum of 6,000 USD is, all considered, rather low, in consideration of the quality and importance of the historical moment they testify.





In 1964 The Beatles, who had just written She Loves You and I Want To Hold Your Hand, will play as many as 24 dates in the US and from that moment on the collective madness that had affected he UK would be exported on the other side of the Ocean. And the history of music would never be the same again.



I Wanna Hold your Hand! is the title of an old movie. In 47 years nothing seems to have changed that much: the radio still plays the great hits by the Fab Four and New York is waiting to see the Beatles on stage again.

(via www.vogue.it )