Bob Dylan - Above The Bell Tower In Stockholm - Drawn Blank 2013
The times, they are a-changing for the National Portrait Gallery.
As highly anticipated we have seen another step in the Drawn Blank Series with a 2013 collection launch from Bob Dylan as published by Washington Green Fine Art. It consists of 11 brand new graphics which includes many unpublished images.
Due to launch in galleries this weekend we have already seen an unprecedented demand in pre sales and pre launch orders. The collectors that are in the know are taking full collections and some individual pieces are have already sold out from the publisher. The Bell Tower In Stockholm hand signed by Bob Dylan in graphite pencil (as is every piece) is one of the pre launch sell outs.
We have a limited number of complete collections and also have broken a set and have a selection of individual artworks available as paper in presentation wallets or framed to the highest of standard as specified by Bob Dylan.WHAT THE CRITICS SAY - BOB DYLAN
Without doubt one of the most important and influential cultural icons of a generation, Bob Dylan is not only an acclaimed singer, songwriter, film director, actor and radio broadcaster, but more recently his impact on the cultural world has transcended to the visual arts.
His prestigious collection of limited edition art entitled The Drawn Blank Series gives insight into the mind of a man who has spent a lifetime portraying his musings of the world through the arts.
This expressive collection captures chance encounters and uniquely combines the everyday with the extraordinary and the intimate personal moments of his life. Always restless and always on the move, his drawings portray a life on the road and invite us all to view the world through the eyes of a modern day Master.
Rachel Campbell-Johnston of The Times explains how: “As you flick through his pictures, you can feel [Dylan] making sense of his surroundings, almost as a blind man might find his bearings through touch”.
Through distorted perspectives, heaving horizons, anonymous subjects and disconnected spaces Dylan expertly imbues his detached and imaginative drawings with a sentiment of the familiar; through line, colour, tone and depth he draws order from the chaos that surrounds him.
"There are giant figures in art who are sublimely good—Mozart, Picasso, Frank Lloyd Wright, Shakespeare, Dickens. Dylan ranks alongside these artists." – Howard Sounes, author ofDown The Highway, The Life of Bob Dylan.
The times, they are a-changing for the National Portrait Gallery as the institution bends its own rules to put on a display of art by Bob Dylan.
The gallery’s remit is to show subjects from British public life or work by active portrait artists, but it has made an exception for Dylan because of his fame as an artist and a musician.
(Above: Bell Tower In Stockholm, by Bob Dylan from The Drawn Blank Series 2013 - in galleries from 10 August 2013.)