A Bob Dylan painting has sold for double its estimate at auction.
By most accounts the greatest living lyricist, Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016.
His artwork isn’t in that league, but it still attracts buyers and has some critical reputation. Impactful, personal works or pieces that link to Dylan’s better known creative life can make big fees.
This piece was painted in Woodstock, the village and artists’ colony in New York state to which Dylan retreated in the mid-60s in response to intense public interest and the demands of touring.
This period is considered one of the high-points of Dylan’s musical career.
He painted the cover for the Band’s album Music From the Big Pink while there. If sold that would certainly top the list of most valuable Bob Dylan paintings.
Bob Dylan in 1966, just before he retired to Woodstock to record and paint.
This sale, of an abstract work, realised $196,156 after going into the sale with a $100,000 estimate.
The painting was originally given, in a style very true to Woodstock’s spirit, in exchange for an astrological chart.
The previous top price for a Dylan painting was $100,000 for an abstract nude sold in 2022.
A Dylan guitar is being sold this week in New York. Owned both by Bob and Robbie Robertson of The Band and played during his pivotal pivot to electric, it is one of the most consequential Dylan instruments to come to sale in recent years.
