Rock Hall opens major Paul McCartney and Wings exhibit in Cleveland

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame opened Level 6 to a different reading of Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles years: not as a detour, but as a band story with its own commercial reach and artistic weight. The new “Paul McCartney and Wings” exhibit opened May 15 in Cleveland and is free with museum admission, giving visitors the hall’s first major museum exhibition devoted to McCartney’s 1970s group.

The display draws on what the Rock Hall describes as the largest collection of artifacts from McCartney’s personal archive ever made accessible to the public, along with donations from band members and associates. Inside are never-before-displayed instruments, clothing, handwritten lyrics, original artwork, tour memorabilia, previously unseen photography, archival video, audio and images. The narrative runs from McCartney’s self-titled 1970 solo debut through Wings’ formation and the band’s breakup in 1981, placing the group in the middle of his reinvention after The Beatles.

That framing matters because the audience for McCartney’s legacy often arrives with The Beatles already fixed in mind. The exhibit pushes back by showing Wings as a working band that built its identity on the road and in the studio, not simply as a famous name attached to McCartney’s afterlife. Rock Hall president Greg Harris said the exhibit gives people “a chance for people to reexamine their impact and their legacy,” and he pointed to the group’s early low-key university tour in the United Kingdom, when Wings traveled in a van, showed up unannounced and played for next to nothing.

The museum marked the launch with a ticketed opening party on May 16 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., extending the exhibit opening into a two-day event at the hall. It also linked the show to Morgan Neville’s documentary “Man on the Run,” which screened at the Rock Hall on February 21 before its Prime Video release on February 27.

Senior director of Museum and Archival Collections Andy Leach discussed the debut with former Wings members Steve Holly and Laurence Juber, underscoring how much of the story now lives in objects, photographs and recordings rather than nostalgia alone. Presented by KeyBank and Raymond James, with additional support from George Barrett, Todd and Karen Ruppert, and Dan and Ellen Zelman, the exhibit makes a clear argument: Wings was not just a bridge from The Beatles to solo fame, but a substantial chapter in McCartney’s own artistic and commercial history.