Artists and musicians share a lot in common. Both seek to evoke a powerful emotional response, and both have limited materials to incite it. David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Miles Davis: all of them work or worked in the same way, whether sat at a canvas or a piano. With both art and music, they sought to alter their audience from within, using their work as a source of comfort and inspiration.
Ronnie has been producing artwork for decades. In 2018, he released The Rolling Stones Set Lists, a book featuring more than 100 pieces painted by him.
Commenting on the painting, Ronnie Wood said: “I call it The Picasso Stones. It’s my interpretation of Picasso’s painting The Three Dancers. Looking at the original, I was inspired to do my own take. I had great fun doing it.
The legendary guitarist, 74, unveiled the pop up shop at a spot on London’s fashionable Carnaby Street. He said: “The shop will feature my original artworks, along with limited editions, brand new box-sets and set lists.”
To celebrate this magnificent animal and raise vital funds to ensure the continued conservation of rhinos and their fellow African species, Tusk is launching a high profile sculpture trail in central London.
Ronnie adopted the African rhino, Spike, and said: “My inspiration is that this beautiful prehistoric creature should be around for future generations of our children to see. I tried to include motifs from the African flags of the main rhino populated regions. As the rhino wanders the plains, it makes me think - it is Spike in another form.”
Bob Dylan
As if he wasn’t content with being the single most iconic musician in the history of recorded music, Bob Dylan also established himself as a celebrated painter and sculptor. The ‘Blowin In The Wind’ singer has been given pretty much every award you can think of, including the Pulitzer Prize, The Presidental Medal of Freedom, the Nobel Prize for Literature, an Oscar, and the National Medal of Arts.
Dylan’s first exhibition of artwork was The Drawn Blank Series, unveiled at Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Germany in 2007. Retrospectrum was initially conceived for the Modern Art Museum (MAM) in Shanghai, China, where it first opened in 2019.
“Bob Dylan is a seminal artist, rightly recognized as one of the defining figures of popular culture for more than half a century,” Shai Baitel, the artistic director of Modern Art Museum (MAM) Shanghai, said in a statement. “We saw the profound impact and reach of Dylan’s work in Shanghai.
David Bowie
Bowie was a visual artist for as long as he was a musician. However, it wasn’t until 1994 that he revealed his work to the public. For the glam icon, painting was an essential part of the musical process. As he explained during a conversation with The New York Times in 1998: “I’ll combine sounds that are kind of unusual, and then I’m not quite sure where the text should fall in the music,” he explained, “Or I’m not sure what the sound conjures up for me. So then I’ll go and try and draw or paint the sound of the music. And often, a landscape will produce itself.” (Faroutmagazine)
Described as a “semi-abstract portrait,” the painting, authenticated by Bowie archivist Andy Peters, is titled “DHead XLVI” and it’s one of around 47 similar pieces Bowie created in the ‘90s. Rendered with strong red-brown and teal tones, the face of the subject is left without detail, meaning it’s uncertain who it was intended to be. The auctioneers had originally predicted a purchase price of between $9,000 and $12,000 CAD (around $7,350 to $9,800 USD) for the “acrylic and computer collage” creation, which measures 9.5in x 7.5in.
Take a look at Paul McCartney’s forgotten portrait of David Bowie, 1990-
Macca would begin painting, likely as a relaxation technique, without an idea of what would happen next. It means that often his work, though expressive, is without serious direction and therefore often sees famous faces pop up in his work. Not only is there room for his former wife Linda in his repertoire but also images of Andy Warhol and of course, Bowie. The paintings were exhibited in Siegen, Germany in 1990.
These paintings are not created with a physical subject but plucked from Macca’s mind’s eye. As such, ‘Bowie Spewing’ sees the image of Ziggy Stardust, (perhaps in relation to Linda McCartney’s Polaroid of Bowie) vomiting across the canvas.
Stevie Nicks
Stevie Nicks doesn’t really think of herself as a painter. And yet, she’s produced a stunning collection of work. Evoking the bucolic dapplings of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Nicks’ paintings are at once folkish and deeply biblical.
They’re all angels,” she said of her art. “I only draw angels. I started to draw when my best friend got Leukemia. And that’s what she’s left me. And so I know she’s really excited now because it has finally, after the last 9 years, come to fruition, and people have finally started appreciating it. But I never drew a thing before she got sick.” (Farout)
