Born Robert Allen Zimmerman in 1941, Bob Dylan is considered one of the most influential cultural contributors in the world. His prolific output as a musician, songwriter, artist, and actor has won him multiple awards; he is recognised globally as one of the true artistic greats of the last 100 years.

Dylan is one of the most highly awarded musicians in history: he has been inducted into three Halls of Fame, has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and was awarded the Polar Music Prize by the Swedish King Carl XVI. He has won ten Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe, and an Academy Award. In 2016 Bob Dylan became the first ever musician to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”, which has been viewed as one of the most controversial selections in the prize’s history.

Dylan was born in Minnesota to second-generation Jewish immigrants, whose parents had moved to America from Lithuania and modern-day Ukraine. He grew up in a small Jewish community, but listening to music on the radio opened up Dylan’s world to the influences of rock and roll, jazz, and blues. The musicians he heard on the radio would be huge influences on his own music further down the line, particularly Elvis Presley and Little Richard.

 

Lot 109: Bob Dylan, American b.1941- Endless Highway, 2017

 

His career (both musical and artistic) began in earnest in the 1960s, a decade in which he would write some of his most famous songs such as The Times They Are a-Changin’, Blowin’ in the Wind, and Like a Rolling Stone. Dylan moved to New York City in 1961, played in the clubs of Greenwich Village, met like-minded creatives, and accompanied them on their records with his harmonica - which led to him being noticed by Columbia Records. In 1962, Dylan changed his name from Zimmerman and released his eponymous debut album. He travelled to the UK at the end of that year and appeared in the BBC’s teleplay Madhouse on Castle Street.

It was in the 1960s that Dylan began painting and drawing. He was entirely self-taught, with an appealing naivety which landed him the commission to paint the cover art for The Band’s 1968 album Music from Big Pink. Dylan experimented with many materials and was known to produce stained glass and ceramic works as well as pen and pencil sketches. He began taking lessons from the painter Norman Raeben in 1974, the year after the release of his book ‘Writings and Drawings’. Since 1994 the musician has published nine more books of his artwork.

 

Lot 115: Bob Dylan, American b.1941- From the Drawn Blank Series: Cassandra

 

In 1994, Drawn Blank - a book of Dylan’s artworks - was published by Random House. Works in the Drawn Blank Series were later included in the first public display of the artist’s paintings in Chemnitz, Germany, which included over 200 gouaches and watercolours, and which was accompanied by a book including 170 reproductions of the works from the series. Roseberys are thrilled to announce the inclusion of eight works from the Drawn Blank Series in the upcoming Prints & Multiples sale on the 7th of March (lot 115).

 

Lot 117: Bob Dylan, American b.1941- Mondo Scripto, 2018

 

Other works by Dylan will also be available at the auction including Little Italy, Sunflowers, Abandoned Motel, Sunset in Monument Valley, Train Tracks and Brooklyn Heights. A work from Dylan’s Mondo Scripto collection is also included, which features lyrics by the musical legend paired with illustrative lithographs (lot 117). The collection was first released in 2018 at London’s Halcyon Gallery, and was featured in the exhibition of 250 of Dylan’s works - Retrospectrum - which debuted at the Modern Art Museum of Shanghai in 2019.

Dylan’s artistic works have been displayed around the world and his paintings have been represented by Gagosian Gallery since the summer of 2011. Halcyon Gallery also displayed works by Dylan in the 2010s, showcasing the series of wrought iron gates the artist had made - which referenced the ‘Iron Range’ area in which he grew up - in the exhibition Mood Swings.