Behind-the-scenes photographs of Paul and Linda McCartney during their 1975 Wings tour feature in an exhibition of art by former pupils of a West Country school.
Sidcot, a Quaker School at Winscombe, in North Somerset, has a long and envied reputation for helping students realise their artistic potential.
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Revealing images of Paul and Linda McCartney backstage after one of their sell-out concerts during their ambitious 1975 Wings over the World tour.
In the 1960s future documentary photographer Homer Sykes was among pupils, experimenting with his Practica Mat 35mm camera. He used the school dark room to develop his work, and then built his own dark room in the eves under the roof of the art room.
He went on to establish an impressive reputation in adult life through work for newspapers and magazines and through books recording his lengthy studies of subjects ranging from traditional British folklore customs to hunting, and Saxon churches.
Working in all weathers and available light, his images capture atmosphere and the character of Britain, exploiting each subject to its fullest depth.
Four of his remarkable and intimate photographs of the McCartneys feature in the exhibition. He was given access to the band when he was asked to shoot images for a children’s book on Paul McCartney and Wings.
The band’s ambitious Wings Over the World tour attracted around one million people to 66 shows on three continents — Australia, Europe, and North America (where it was known as the Wings Over America Tour and represented McCartney’s first appearances in concert since the last Beatles tour in 1966).
The tour followed two Wings album releases: Venus and Mars and Wings at the Speed of Sound.
Recalling Sidcot, Homer Sykes says: “It was then – and may well still be – a school that allows an individual a lot of freedom and opportunities to find out what interests you and allows you to develop those interests.”
His advice to young photographers today is drawn from the words he overheard his art teacher, James Bradley, say to a girl pupil during a mock A-level art exam.
He says: “I was sitting next to the ‘best’ pupil, you know, the student who really knows how to paint and can do life-like portrait. She was obviously struggling that morning, and Mr Bradley came up to her and said: 'What’s the matter?' And she replied that she didn’t feel inspired.
"He retorted, that this had nothing to do with inspiration but everything to do with application, and walked off. That has kind of stuck with me as a seminal moment. Application leads to inspiration, not the other way round.”
The wide-ranging exhibition includes posters for work by film producer Tim Bevan, whose productions include Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; posters for documentary film-maker Nick Broomfield’s work and pieces by furniture maker Garth Reynolds, textile designer Theo Sykes, son of Homer, sculptor/potter/painter, Sophia Hughes, and artist John Morland, former Mayor of Glastonbury.
The exhibition, at the school’s Sidcot Arts Centre, opens on Tuesday, April 10, and runs to Tuesday, May 8.
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Naomi Box, right, and Emma Davis at the Sidcot Art Centre preparing the Old Scholars Arts exhibition, which features prints of Linda and Paul McCartney by photographer Homer Sykes
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