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Talkin' Bob Dylan Plagiarism Blues

It is widely acknowledged that Bob Dylan and his fellow Greenwich Village folk musician friends traded songs, melodies and inspiration in the melting pot that was early 1960s New York, but it now appears that the 70-year old singer is getting himself into a spot of bother for applying that same magpie-eyed approach to his painting.

The launch of a new exhibition at New York's Gagosian Gallery of Dylan's Asia series has seen a number of online bloggers come forward to point out the similarities between his paintings and photographs by a number of as-yet-uncredited sources.

Among the examples cited elsewhere include the painting on the right in this installation view which draws on a photo by Magnum photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, and another shot by Dmitri Kessel (reproduced here on the Bob Dylan Encyclopedia blog), that bears a striking resemblane to a painting seen in this second view from the gallery show.

One fan going by the name of Okinawa Soba even spotted that six of the late 19th and early 20th century photographs he owned and posted on his personal Flickr stream had been appropriated for the exhibition in a similar way. While other versions of these old photographs may exist, Dylan's painted homages incorporated edits Soba had made in Photoshop.

The real cheek comes in that the exhibition, which runs until 22 October, originally described Dylan's paintings as a "visual journal" containing "first-hand depictions" of life in the Far East. That description has since been amended to remove both phrases, referring now to the works as mere "reflections".

While Dylan wasn't breaking the law here by painting these compositions (at least as far as we are aware!), it is odd that he has failed to credit any of his sources, particular given that one assumes these paintings will be sold on to wealthy international collectors.

So what do you make of it all? Has he done enough to change the original images? Should we give Dylan some leeway and chalk it up to a senior moment? Or should he be forced to pay compensation to the photographers and their estates?

Artists & Illustrators first looked at the paintings of Bob Dylan in our May 2008 issue - call back issues on (01858) 438 789 to order your copy today.

The David Hockney Show

It’s not every day that you get to share a room with an art legend like David Hockney… Which is why I was just one of several hundred people crammed into an upstairs room at the Royal Academy today to hear the 74-year old painter reveal plans for a major solo exhibition at the gallery in January. TV crews, broadsheet reporters, minor celebs (well, Newsnight’s Mark Lawson) and even a few curious fellow Academicians craned their collective ears to hear him speak, hoping for some wisdom and insight into this most fascinating of visual artists.

We’ll have a full report and interview in the November issue but I think it is worth just saying now what great fun Hockney was. Press briefings are notoriously dry affairs but once the show was put in context by the curators, the woman from the Cultural Olympiad had added her bit and we’d had a word from the sponsors (BNP Paribas, since you asked), the stage was set for the David Hockney Show.

Rather than avoiding questions or acting mock-bashful as is the usual artist stance, he launched straight into a rant about the way we wrongly say the exhibition’s launch date – it’s not two-thousand-and-twelve, it’s twenty-twelve he reasoned, pointing out that the Battle of Hasting took place in ten-sixty-six, not one-thousand-and… Well, you get the picture.

From here we were treated to joyous tributes to his native Yorkshire, a wildly fascinating explanation about his new nine-camera video making and several diversions into the joys of smoking (We’re all going to die anyway, he noted drily). If he was feeling the pressure of taking over Lucian Freud’s mantle of Britain’s greatest living artist, he didn’t let it show.

The short hour we all spent huddled in his company was a reminder that in some special cases being creative isn’t something that you can turn on and off, it’s a unstoppable torrent that pours out at all times.

- Steve Pill, Editor

Artist to sell life’s work for Alzheimer’s charity

Northumberland artist Wilson Smith is selling his entire collection of paintings, new and old, to raise money for Alzheimer’s Research UK, the UK’s leading dementia research charity. Over 50 paintings will be on sale at an exhibition, entitled Painting for Alzheimer’s, at Bellingham Town Hall on 29 and 30 August. Mainly in oil, the paintings include landscapes, portraits, large abstract canvasses and a series of copies of Toulouse-Lautrec’s work.

Wilson, 78, pictured below, was devastated when his wife Jean died with Alzheimer’s three years ago. Since then he’s found comfort in his love for painting and is determined to continue to raise desperately needed funds for research into this devastating disease. His talent as an artist was first noticed when he was just 10-years-old and he was presented to the Prime Minister of the time, Sir Winston Churchill.

Based in West Woodburn, near Hexham, Wilson explained his motivation for supporting Alzheimer’s Research UK: “Watching Jean slip away with Alzheimer’s was one of the hardest things I’ve ever experienced. So much more needs to be understood about this cruel disease and it can only be achieved through research. I felt helpless as Jean was gradually robbed of her precious memories and independence. Towards the end she couldn’t walk or talk and finally she couldn’t eat or drink – there was no way out.

“The sale of my paintings is dedicated to all those people who are living with this devastating disease. Every penny raised through the sale of my work will go to Alzheimer’s Research UK to help them progress with their pioneering research. Words can’t describe how much I want to see new treatments and a cure for this disease so that other people don’t have to suffer.”

The Painting for Alzheimer’s exhibition takes place on 29 and 30 August, from 9am to 5pm at Bellingham Town Hall, 19 Hillside, Bellingham, Hexham, Northumberland NE48 2RU. Entrance is £3 and includes a catalogue of the paintings.

An Unusual Sight

In a break from designing Artists & Illustrators, I enjoyed the glorious sunshine of the Sussex countryside this weekend at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. I’d gone there looking forward to watching the variety of cars and bikes, old and new, tearing up the infamous hill climb - and I definitely wasn’t disappointed in that respect. But what I hadn’t banked on was finding one of the most impressive sculptures I’ve seen this year.

Soaring above the trees as I entered the grounds was a specially commissioned sculpture to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Jaguar E-type. Standing at 28-metres high and weighing in at 150 tonnes, this impressive sculpture by artist Gerry Judah is built out of piping and took 10 days to install.

Did any of you visit the Goodwood Festival of Speed this weekend? Let me know what you thought of the sculpture if so. And maybe you could recommend other artworks in unusual locations around the UK, to add to those picked out in the current issue of the mag.

- Chloë Collyer, Art Editor

Arcadian Painters

Last night, the Artists & Illustrators team headed to the opening of Arcadian Painters, a fascinating new exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery which brings together the work of contemporary painter Cy Twombly and the classical 17th century artist Nicolas Poussin.

The concept of the show is one that, if I'm honest, it would be easy to glance over and dismiss - highlighting the similar career path and interests of two artists whose work couldn't appear more contrasting.

Poussin started out by making hand-drawn copies of classical sculptures and Renaissance paintings. He settled on a style that prided itself on grand allegories in natural settings, full of epic tragedies and ruddy-faced cherubs. Twombly meanwhile is defiantly abstract, dealing in aggressive marks, scribbled phrases and tight bursts of colour on relentlessly off-white or textured surfaces.

Curator Dr Nicolas Cullinan had the idea to pursue the links between the two artists a few years ago when he was working on a Tate Modern retrospective of Twombly's work. The elderly American painter confessed that he had always wanted to emulate Poussin. When Cullinan dug deeper, he found a string of shared interests and biographical details - both produced a cycle of paintings based on the Four Seasons, both moved to Rome aged 30, and so on.

I'll be honest here and say that artists like Twombly normally leave me cold and, on a purely visual level, Arcadian Painters didn't make me like his work any more than I did before I went in. For me, his work is too ugly and restless to make me ever want a Twombly on my wall.

However, Arcadian Painters achieved what so few exhibitions actually manages to do. It made me appreciate and better understand what drives Twombly. And how many times can you honestly say that you've been able to do that when you've been stood in front of another faceless abstract painting?

His 'visual language' (a phrase director Ian Dejardin used in his opening speech) is not one I will ever be buying a Berlitz guide to learn, but I could begin to see how and why he was doing what he was doing. I began to see how Poussin was as important to him as Raphael, Mantegna and co. had been to the French artist back in the 1600s. By the final room, containing Twombly's quartet of giant Four Seasons inspired canvases, I began to stand in awe of his approach.

I really recommend visiting the exhibition if you get chance - it opens at Dulwich Picture Gallery today and runs until 25 September. You can even pick up cheap tickets with our 2-for-1 reader offer - find out more by clicking here.

Take an open mind and you might just surprise yourself...

Cy Twombly, Hero and Leander (To Christopher Marlowe), 1985.

Collection of the artist

To Me, To You

We've all done it - bought a lovely piece of furniture only for the delivery guy to drop it at your door and discover that there is no way you can get it through the tiny door frame. Somehow, you expect a major national gallery to be better prepared but nevertheless Cumbria's Abbot Hall Art Gallery has had a struggle on its hands after acquiring a giant triptych more than a decade ago. However, the three parts of The Great Picture, first commissioned in 1646, have finally been reunited in the gallery and the giant work will go on display there for the first time today.

The Great Picture was paid for by Lady Anne Clifford (1590 - 1676), the daughter of George Clifford, the third Earl of Cumberland and a favourite at the court of Queen Elizabeth I. After much the death of her cousin and uncle in the 1640s left no male heirs to the family's estates in Westmorland and Yorkshire, she petitioned for the return of her rightful inheritance. The Great Picture, thought to have been painted by Dutch artist Jan Van Belcamp, marks the moment when she finally received her due several years later.

Since acquiring the work in the late 1990s, the two side panels of the triptych have been on display at Abbot Hall but the central panel, measuring 2.5m square, had sat in storage while the team found a way of getting it inside the tightly-proportioned Georgian venue.

The pictures below show how the team finally got the central panel out of storage and into the gallery...

The reunited triptych will be on display at Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, Cumbria, until December 2013.