I'm not the kind of cat that's going to cut off an ear if I can't do something.
Over the past 60 years, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan has produced some of American culture's most illustrious, genre-defining songs. His poetic lyrics and innovative melodies, showcased in such hits as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "Like a Rolling Stone," have inspired anti-war protesters and Rock 'n' Roll stars like Bruce Springsteen alike.
Now 80, Dylan continues to perform-and win international awards for his songwriting, including the (much-debated) 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature and a special 2008 Pulitzer Prize citation. But the musician has, in recent decades, increasingly put aside his guitar in favor of the paintbrush, pencil and even welding torch, actively pursuing his passion for the visual arts.
Dylan's visual art was first seen by the public via a painting he contributed for the cover of The Band's Music from Big Pink album in 1968. The cover of Dylan's own 1970 album Self Portraitfeatures the painting of a human face by Dylan. More of Dylan's artwork was revealed with the 1973 publication of his book Writings and Drawings.[417] The cover of Dylan's 1974 album Planet Waves again featured one of his paintings. In 1994 Random House published Drawn Blank, a book of Dylan's drawings. In 2007, the first public exhibition of Dylan's paintings, The Drawn Blank Series, opened at the Kunstsammlungen in Chemnitz, Germany; it showcased more than 200 watercolors and gouaches made from the original drawings. The exhibition coincided with the publication of Bob Dylan: The Drawn Blank Series, which includes 170 reproductions from the series. From September 2010 until April 2011, the National Gallery of Denmark exhibited 40 large-scale acrylic paintings by Dylan, The Brazil Series.
In July 2011, a leading contemporary art gallery, Gagosian Gallery, announced their representation of Dylan's paintings. An exhibition of Dylan's art, The Asia Series, opened at the Gagosian Madison Avenue Gallery on September 20, displaying Dylan's paintings of scenes in China and the Far East. The New York Times reported that "some fans and Dylanologists have raised questions about whether some of these paintings are based on the singer's own experiences and observations, or on photographs that are widely available and were not taken by Mr. Dylan". The Times pointed to close resemblances between Dylan's paintings and historic photos of Japan and China, and photos taken by Dmitri Kessel and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Art critic Blake Gopnikhas defended Dylan's artistic practice, arguing: "Ever since the birth of photography, painters have used it as the basis for their works: Edgar Degas and Édouard Vuillard and other favorite artists-even Edvard Munch-all took or used photos as sources for their art, sometimes barely altering them". The Magnum photo agency confirmed that Dylan had licensed the reproduction rights of these photographs.
Dylan's second show at the Gagosian Gallery, Revisionist Art, opened in November 2012. The show consisted of thirty paintings, transforming and satirizing popular magazines, including Playboyand Babytalk.In February 2013, Dylan exhibited the New Orleans Series of paintings at the Palazzo Reale in Milan. In August 2013, Britain's National Portrait Gallery in London hosted Dylan's first major UK exhibition, Face Value, featuring twelve pastel portraits.
In November 2013, the Halcyon Gallery in London mounted Mood Swings, an exhibition in which Dylan displayed seven wrought iron gates he had made. In a statement released by the gallery, Dylan said, "I've been around iron all my life ever since I was a kid. I was born and raised in iron ore country, where you could breathe it and smell it every day. Gates appeal to me because of the negative space they allow. They can be closed but at the same time they allow the seasons and breezes to enter and flow. They can shut you out or shut you in. And in some ways there is no difference".
In November 2016, the Halcyon Gallery featured a collection of drawings, watercolors and acrylic works by Dylan. The exhibition, The Beaten Path, depicted American landscapes and urban scenes, inspired by Dylan's travels across the USA. The show was reviewed by Vanity Fair and Asia Times Online. In October 2018, the Halcyon Gallery mounted an exhibition of Dylan's drawings, Mondo Scripto. The works consisted of Dylan hand-written lyrics of his songs, with each song illustrated by a drawing.
Retrospectrum, the largest retrospective of Dylan's visual art to date, consisting of over 250 works in a variety of media, debuted at the Modern Art Museum in Shanghai in 2019. Building on the exhibition in China, a version of Retrospectrum, which includes a new series of paintings, "Deep Focus", drawn from film imagery, opened at the Frost Art Museum in Miami on November 30, 2021.
Since 1994, Dylan has published eight books of paintings and drawings.