Paul and Bob

An unexpected aspect of the Paul Nash exhibition at Tate Britain is his use of photographs as an inspiration for surrealist pictures.

At the end of the Second World War he went to a scrap heap in Cowley, outside Oxford, to photograph wrecked Luftwaffe and RAF planes piled up for scrap. This is one of his photos and then a picture that it inspired.

Paul Nash, Totes Meer (Dead Sea)

Does anybody else use this technique? Serendipitously I saw this on Diamond Geezer’s website.

Blackpool - North Pier

It’s a picture he took of the North Pier at Blackpool in 2009. A sharp-eyed DG reader noticed a marked similarity with this picture that was exhibited in a London gallery recently.

Bob Dylan, Pier in Norfolk Virginia, 2015/16

The similarity even extends to the seagull perched on top of the right-hand lamp-post. The watercolour was painted in 2015/16 and is titled Pier in Norfolk, Virginia. The artist is the recent Nobel prize-winner, Bob Dylan. I would be quite chuffed if I had a photograph of mine copied by such a celebrity.

While Paul Nash’s use of photography seems entirely valid there is something not quite right about Bob Dylan’s unacknowledged plagiarism.  The exhibition at the Halcyon Gallery at the end of last year was, ironically, titled The Beaten Path. Here is how the gallery describes the show.

The Beaten Path features a wide collection of drawings, watercolours and acrylic works on canvas which depict the artist’s view of American landscapes and urban scenes. The Beaten Path invites the viewer to accompany Dylan on his travels as he criss-crosses the USA through the back streets, alleys and country roads. Reminiscing about a landscape unpolluted by the ephemera of pop culture, fleeting snapshots of America emerge from the exhibition.

The Beaten Path offers viewers insight into the world of Dylan, whose artistry has transcended every generation and celebrates a vivid manifestation of a country which continues to enthral, charm and captivate.

Here is what Bob Dylan does best.