It took his wife Linda's death for Paul McCartney to pluck up enough courage to go publuc about the secret love of his life - painting. Encouraged by Linda, Paul began painting in 1982.
"Everyone said life begins at 40, so I thought I'd better do something," says Paul. "I jogged a bit, because I'd never done that before, then I thought, why not paint? I'd liked drawing when I was at school, but I had this block in my head that it was other people who painted, not people like me."
His close friend and fellow Beatle John Lennon, who had been to art school, was behind one of Paul's biggest blocks. "I thought only people who went to art school were allowed to paint. Then I thought, this is madness and decided to give it a go."
These days, Paul paints all the time. "For me, it's very similar to music. It's a freedom thing, something I can put my feelings into, a calm in the middle of the craziness, if you like."
Self-taught and unsure his work was up to scratch, Paul turned down offers to exhibit until this year, when a small gallery in Germany asked to see his work to assess whether it was worthy of an exhibition.
This convinced him that the German gallery wanted to show his paintings on their own merit and not just because of his famous name.
"Before this, galleries had offered me exhibitions, but none had asked to see my work first," Paul says.
He was still hesitant about a public showing. But when the gallery convinced him that his paintings had real merit, he was finally persuaded. And that is why his work is on show in Siegen, a little-known town east of Bonn, instead of in London, Paris or New York. And Paul couldn't be more pleased.