Mary McCartney
Mary McCartney is a world-renowned contemporary photographer, documentary filmmaker and sustainable food pioneer.A leading British creative, McCartney’s work covers multiple disciplines but is always rooted in her passion for impactful storytelling that focuses on candid, intimate, and emotional moments in portrait and documentary photography.
As a portrait and fine art photographer, McCartney’s work has been featured globally, with exhibitions taking place in London, New York, San Francisco, Toronto, Aix-en-Provence, Stockholm and Prague. In 2015 she was, famously, invited by Buckingham Palace to take the official photograph to commemorate Queen Elizabeth II becoming the longest-reigningBritish monarch.
McCartney’s work has also been commissioned by prestigious publications including National Geographic, Harper’s Bazaar, British Vogue, Interview Magazine and GQ. To this could also be added high-impact advertising campaigns for clients like Adidas, Gossard, and Mandarin Oriental. Other notable projects include Off Pointe - A Photographic Study of the Royal Ballet After Hours (2004); Gay Icons, commissioned portraits for the National Portrait Gallery, London (2008); and The White Horse, a book project on her relationship with her horse (2018).
In 2023, McCartney’s first feature documentary, If These Walls Could Sing, the untold story of the Abbey Road Studios 90-year history, was selected to premiere at the Telluride Film Festival. Streaming globally on Disney, it was nominated for a Critics Choice Documentary Award.
McCartney, furthermore, has also been at the forefront of food sustainability for over 25 years, with a history and heritage rooted in her mother’s (Lady Linda McCartney, 1941–1998, American photographer, musician, cookbook author, and activist who was the keyboardist and harmony vocalist in the band Wings that also featured her husband, Sir Paul McCartney of the Beatles) pioneering work and creation of one of the first meat-free brands, Linda McCartney Food, in 1991.
In 2009, Mary co-founded the global collective Meat Free Monday with her father, Sir Paul McCartney CH MBE (born 1942, founding member of the Beatles, whose songwriting partnership with John Lennon [1940-1980] is considered the most successful in music history), and sister, Stella McCartney CBE (born 1971, fashion designer and supporter of animal rights and environmentalism, who uses vegetarian and animal-free alternatives in her work). Mary McCartney is also a global ambassador for Green Common Foods, a food tech brand in Asia that is focused on plant-based meat substitute products.
Recently, premiering in 2021, McCartney has also been executive producer and presenter of her, three- season, EMMY-nominated plant-based cooking show, “Mary McCartney Serves It Up!” for Discovery+.
McCartney’s work is held in major private and public permanent collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the National Portrait Gallery, London; the Royal Academy, London; and the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, Paris.
McCartney’s exhibitions includes: Off Pointe, Royal Opera House, London (2004); Off Pointe, Julia Margaret Cameron Museum, Freshwater, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom (2005); Collective Works, Nunnington Hall, Yorkshire, United Kingdom (2005); Playing Dress Up, Goss Michael Foundation, Dallas, Texas, U.S.A. (2007); Off Pointe, Crane Kalman Gallery, Brighton, United Kingdom (2007); British Style Observed, Natural History Museum, London (2008); From Where I Stand, National Portrait Gallery, London (2010); From Where I Stand, Staley Wise Gallery, New York, New York, U.S.A. (2010); From Where I Stand, Michael Hoppen Gallery, London (2010); From Where I Stand, Contributed, Berlin (2011); From Where I Stand, Tres Hombres, Halmstad, Sweden (2012); Developing, Izzy Gallery, Toronto, Canada (2013); Developing, The Lowry Gallery, Salford, United Kingdom (2013); Monochrome and Colour, De Pury De Pury, London (2014); Mother Daughter, Gagosian Gallery, New York, New York, U.S.A. (2015); Undone, Izzy Gallery, Toronto, Canada (2017); Mary McCartney: The White Horse, Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, California, U.S.A. (2018); Mother Daughter, Fotografiska, Stockholm (2018); Off Pointe, Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2018); Off Pointe, Somerset House, London (2019); Monochrome Colour, The Wola Museum, Warsaw (2019); Moment of Affection, Château La Coste, Aix-en-Provence, France (2022); Can We Have a Moment? Three Decades of Photographs in Britain, Sotheby’s, London (2023); Embrace, A Hug From The Art World, New York, New York, U.S.A. (2023); Double Exposure, Claridge’s Art Space, London (2024); and Striking, Loggia of Galerie Rudolfinum, Designblok, Prague (2025).
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