October Legends and Americana Ending November 14th
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 11/15/2015
When we invited the world's preeminent baseball artist to participate in this special Non-Sport Auction, Dick Perez immediately knew his subject matter: Bob Dylan going electric at Newport. The groundbreaking, sixties-shaping, career-defining event celebrated its 50th anniversary this past summer, and Dick has paid the ultimate tribute with this epic 3-1/4-feet by 2-1/2-feet masterpiece. It's a significant artistic departure for the Diamond Kingmaker and longtime Official Artist of both the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Philadelphia Phillies. But we'll turn the mike over to Perez himself to provide the fascinating back-story of how "Dylan Plugs In" came to be...
In the Words of Dick Perez:
On July 25, 1965, Dylan walked on stage with an electric Fender Stratocaster guitar slung around his neck, plugged it in, and proceeded to shock and stun thousands of the Folk-pure audience that had gathered to worship their troubadour hero. It is debated just how many in the Newport audience booed, jeered, shouted, cried, and felt betrayed. No matter, it was one of the most iconic moments in musical history and paved the way for Dylan's revolutionary Highway 61 Revisited album featuring "Like a Rolling Stone"—also celebrating its Golden Anniversary this year. With this piece I did not want to do a mere portrait of the artist, but to create him within the context of a meaningful narrative, which required a good bit of research. Because there aren’t many color photos, and the YouTube footage is in black and white, it took a while to determine the type and color of clothing, his hair style then, the microphone setup and, of course, the exact guitar. Fortunately, the Strat was sold at auction in 2012 for just under a million dollars and I found a catalog photo of it. However, the bridge (located at the bottom of the guitar where the strings end up) had a plate cover in the auction picture that was not on the guitar Dylan used at Newport, so I had to find out what an uncovered bridge looked like on that guitar. Finally, I was going to paint just Dylan and his guitar, no microphones. But my son, who is a musician and plays electric guitar, pointed out to me the irony of the mikes. They are now just about extinct, and were specifically meant to be used at an acoustic guitar performance. The mike on top for the voice, and the one below for the acoustic guitar. I thought they added an important component to the narrative, so I included them.