Ronnie Wood: Artist
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,Music
Ronnie Wood: Artist Details
Review “Ronnie Wood: Artist brims with paintings by the Rolling Stones guitarist: not just glimpses of his life with the band, but still lifes, landscapes, and portraits.” - Entertainment Weekly“Ronnie Wood, best known as the longtime, guitar-playing sideman for the Rolling Stones, is also a talented visual artist… In his new book, Ronnie Wood: Artist, the rock and roller shows off 377 of his works, including watercolors of his bandmates as well as acrylics of some of his well-known contemporaries.” - Parade Read more About the Author Emmanuel Guigon is the director of the Museu Picasso in Barcelona.Keith Richards is a member of The Rolling Stones. Read more
Reviews
"Art fills my life, art is my life and art will continue to be my life." Ronnie wood.For anyone wondering just how good, and what kind of an artist Ronnie Wood is, this book is the answer. In a nutshell-this is a wonderful, beautiful book full of hundreds of examples of Wood's work in various mediums--oils, acrylics, dry point etching, pen and ink, mixed media, colored pencil, intaglio and inkjet, woodblock, and pastels are all here--along with a few examples of his bronzes and phone art. Many examples of his work are shown one to a page with others two to a page and only a relative few three to a page. The colors are bright and the subtle shading on the pen and ink drawings and pastels is nicely reproduced.The book is broken down into chapters like "Early Work", "Faces", "The Rolling Stones", "Icons", "Portraits", "Nudes", "Views" and other subjects. There's a nice essay by Wood along with accompanying color photos for a quick introduction to his art. There's also an index of all Wood's work which is very helpful. Throughout the book there are short quotes from Wood that help explain some of his works and helps put them in better perspective. There's a a page titled "Outro" with Keith Richards writing about Wood and his art--a nice touch.Where to start? Depending on what you like the sections on musicians is very cool--some of the subjects are Duke Ellington, Bongo Man, Charlie Parker, and Miles Davis, which are just a few examples. Plus Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Elvis, a full page pencil sketch of Eric Clapton is quite nice, Slash, and other musicians who influenced Wood are present. Also here are Brigitte Bardot, Jack Nicholson (a portrait focusing especially on Nicholson's eyes is captivating), Paul Newman, Al Pacino, De Niro, and others. The chapter on The Stones is full of great examples of the band members in various mediums that go beyond the surface of the band as we normally see them--the "Beggar's Banquet" piece from 1989 is very atmospheric with Wood adding to and interpreting the scene we've all seen. The nudes are sensitively done while others border on slightly erotic, and Wood's early abstracts are bold and exciting. The ballet works are impressionistic and evoke the feeling of the art of ballet. There's a warm yet vibrant portrait of Wood's wife--the original is about the size of a postage stamp--but here it's given a full page in the book. Wood has always had a love of horses and several examples are here including "Wild Horses" that really gives the feeling of the subject. One of the better chapters (for me) was "Views"--landscapes--("Ireland View", "Iceland Green","Bare Trees At Sandymount")--and vignettes inside wherever ("Barcelona Balcony") Wood happened to create something. The chapter "Beyond The Canvas" shows Wood's work in mirror painting, a hand painted chronometer, and bronze.This book will take you a long time to digest--there's so much to see, study, and appreciate. After looking at Wood's book for several days I began to get the feeling that Wood's real passion is creating art. And while music is very important, it's his art that really feeds his soul and allows him full freedom to create. Any Wood/Stones/art fan will find something exciting and informative about the artist's work in the hundreds of works on display here.
