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Review by Martin Gayford
June 11 (Bloomberg) -- Celebrity painting should be a new historical art category. It's like outsider art, produced by inspired amateurs outside the dealer and gallery loop -- except this stuff is by famous millionaires, not unknown eccentrics.
Latest in the line is Bob Dylan, whose ``The Drawn Blank Series'' of mixed-media works on paper is going on show at London's Halcyon Gallery.
I've lost count of the number of musicians and singers whose painting has been exhibited in the last decade or so. Paul McCartney, Tony Bennett, David Bowie and Miles Davis all tried their hands.
For those wondering how Dylan shapes up with a brush and paints, the answer is not like a Rolling Stone: his work is a good deal less technically accomplished than Ronnie Wood's pictures, while being considerably easier on the eye. Dylan's not, on the other hand, nearly as good a draftsman as John Lennon, who had an engagingly quirky line.
It seems fairest to compare celebrity artists with each other, rather than with Degas and Goya or even Tracey Emin. Come to think of it, it also seems fair enough for singers and guitarists to audition as artists, since artists have recently spent much energy on turning themselves into celebrities.
Stylistically, Dylan is a late example of a Fauve -- very late indeed, you might say, since the Fauves, or ``wild beasts'' first came to attention at the Paris Salon d'Automne of 1905. Dylan told an interviewer for the London-based Times that it was the Fauves and their predecessors -- Matisse, Derain, Monet, Gauguin -- whose art first had an impact on him.
Red Sky
Dylan has a taste for strong hues, as you might guess from some of his titles (``It's All Over Now, Baby Blue,'' ``Under the Red Sky''). These paintings come in different color-ways. Thus ``Woman in Red Lion Pub'' -- depicting a female figure from behind leaning on, presumably, a bar -- comes in several versions. She wears a yellow dress against a green background, or green dress against a blue background, or pink with a purple backdrop.
The original 92 drawings were done between 1989 and 1992 while Dylan was touring America, as the poet Andrew Motion explains in the catalog. Then, in 2007, Dylan transferred scans of these images onto large sheets of paper and reworked them.
The results are not unpleasant, and -- well -- colorful. The main disadvantage is that Dylan can't draw skillfully. That, of course, is officially not a disadvantage in modern art. Picasso famously remarked that he could draw like Raphael when he was 12, and spent the rest of his life forgetting that skill.
It's best to go through the Raphael stage first. With Dylan you get the impression that the distortions are happening by accident. In ``Woman on a Bed'' the figure's thigh gets wider, not narrower as it approaches her knee. The railway lines in ``Train Tracks'' seem to end in mid-air, which could be dangerous.
So there's lot's of room for improvement. But as Dylan wrote many years ago, ``Someday, everything is gonna be diff'rent/ When I paint my masterpiece.''
``The Drawn Blank Series'' is on show at the Halcyon Gallery, 24 Bruton Street, London W1J 6QQ from June 14. For information, click on http://www.halcyongallery.com or call +44- 207-659-7640.
All the original paintings have been sold privately, with prices not disclosed by the gallery. Limited-edition prints will be on sale starting at 1,000 pounds ($1,957).
(Martin Gayford is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer of this review: Martin Gayford in London at martin@cgayford.freeserve.co.uk.
