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“The Third Eye: Early Photographs,”a new book featuring hundreds of personal photographs
taken by George Harrison during his years with the Beatles, has arrived just in time for holiday gifting season.
Released Oct. 6 by Random House, the 352-page hardcoveroffers a rare look at Beatlemania from inside the band, featuring more than 250 photographs and 8mm film stills captured by Harrison between 1963 and 1970. Many of the images have never been published before, making it a can’t-go-wrong gift for even the most avid Fab Four collectors in your life this holiday season.
Rather than revisiting the band’s history through the familiar lens of press photographers, “The Third Eye” documents John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and Harrison through the eyes of one of their own. Armed with his Pentax camera, Harrison photographed his bandmates during their whirlwind rise to international fame — including their first trip to the U.S and motorcades through Australia to shopping excursions in Paris and travels through India and Tahiti.
The result is a refreshingly candid collection of photos of one of the most extensively photographed bands in history, with intimate portraits and behind-the-scenes snapshots of each member.
The book was compiled and curated by Harrison’s widow, Olivia Harrison, who also contributes a forward. Irish novelist Colm Tólbin provides an introduction, while acclaimed author George Saunders contributes an afterword. The photographs are accompanied by commentary from Harrison himself, including previously unpublished remarks about the images.
“George once said to me, ‘We were the only ones who never saw The Beatles,'” Olivia Harrison, who met the Beatle in person in 1976, writes. “This book contains some of what they, and he, saw from the center of the cyclone they unexpectedly created. George’s images take me behind not only his Pentax viewfinder but into his mind’s eye, His Third Eye, and beyond. I am there by his side as he focused the camera and chose when to let in the light.”
“I can linger beside him as he stopped time with each squeeze of the shutter,” she continued. “It fills me with joy.”
For collector’s looking to splurge, a $500 deluxe edition, released Oct. 27, comes packaged in a specially designed case with a cloth-bound, foil-stamped book four fine-art photographic prints and a signed, numbered print from Olivia Harrison. Its biggest draw is an exclusive seven-inch vinyl featuring a previously unreleased recording by Harrison.
The release follows a recent wave of photography books from the Beatles themselves. McCartney published “1964: Eyes of the Storm” in 2023, featuring photographs he took during the band’s early rise to fame, while Starr released his collection, “Photograph,” in 2015.
