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Dylan the a-changin' artist
Louise Jury, Chief Arts Correspondent9 Jun 2008
You've got all the music down to the last box set of studio out-takes, you've read the books and seen the movies and you've kept the ticket stubs to prove you've seen the grouchy master of singer-songwriters. What to do now if you're a Bob Dylan fan?
You can buy his art - Dylan also paints and sculpts and a series of signed limited editions are to go on sale at the first British exhibition of his works.
The show at the Halcyon Gallery in Bruton Street, Mayfair, opens on Saturday. It includes 80 recent paintings based on drawings produced on the road nearly two decades ago.
Many of the originals have been snapped up before the show begins. Some are still available but prices are not being disclosed. The performer has given permission for limited editions to be sold at other commercial galleries with prices starting at £1,000.
Paul Green, the Halcyon's director, said: "Dylan still looks at playing 150 dates a year because he wants people to hear his music and he wants as many people to see the art as possible."
There are plans for the exhibition to tour and Dylan is in talks about putting on more shows of his work, including sculptures.
The 67-year-old works in a studio at his home in California. He has expressed irritation at the way some fans and critics try to psychoanalyse him through his art. He told an interviewer: "If it pleases the eye of the beholder ... There's no more to it than that, to my mind. Or even if it repels the eye. Either one is fine."
The idea for an exhibition came from a gallery in Germany whose owner had seen a book of Dylan's drawings and sketches. When the opportunity came to present a more comprehensive version of the show in England, Mr Green read Dylan's autobiography Chronicles and saw No Direction Home, the Martin Scorsese film, to understand more about him.
Mr Green said: "I realised this was somebody who was intrinsically a great painter. There are some derivative influences but if you're not an artist, you couldn't do it. He is obviously a genius. The move from music to poetry and painting seems to be a seamless process."
Certain images recur throughout the exhibition as Dylan plays with different-coloured versions of the same scene, whether of women lying down or railway tracks. Mr Green said people had an image of Dylan as bleak and lonely, "but the work is definitely not bleak".
The Drawn Blank Series runs until 13 July. Admission is free but demand is expected to be high. Details of timed tickets, incurring a handling fee, can be found on the gallery's website.
