Mother Love

With the first major retrospective of Linda McCartney’s photography on display in Scotland, her daughters Mary and Stella reflect on the intimate portraits that radiate the heartfelt warmth and joy of their family life.

- Frances Hedges

"Scotland was like nothing I’d ever lived in,” Linda McCartney once said. “It was the most beautiful land you have ever seen, way at the end of nowhere.”

It seems fitting, therefore, that the first major UK retrospective of the photographer’s work should take place in Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. “Scotland was always very close to my mother’s heart — it was where she could wander on horseback and daydream and be within the natural landscape,” says Mary McCartney, who has co-curated the exhibition with her father, Paul, and sister Stella. A tribute to an adored wife and mother, lost far too soon (Linda died of breast cancer in 1998, at just 56), the show also sheds light on the extraordinary breadth of her photographic oeuvre. In a true labour of love, the family has spent several years combing through Linda’s archive to source pieces that illustrate her versatility: there are atmospheric landscapes, tender vignettes of domestic life and the portraits of musical legends for which she is perhaps best known.