A collection of rare and valuable art works by international music legend BOB DYLAN are to be exhibited for the first time in Australia this October.

Sydney’s newest gallery 28 Spring Street in Bondi Junction will launch the exhibition with a gala opening on Wednesday 29 October.

Drawn Blank – Bob Dylan’s Art showcases a collection of works that had their genesis as drawings made by Dylan during his world tour of 1989 – 1992 and later published in a book entitled Drawn Blank. The works capture Dylan’s chance encounters and observations; these portraits, interiors, landscapes, still lifes, nudes and street scenes were done “to relax and refocus a restless mind”.

When contacted by a German museum curator who had come across the book and proposed to exhibit the originals, Dylan was moved to realise his original vision for the drawings. He created paintings from them using watercolour and gouache and these form the collection entitled The Drawn Blank Series. It was first exhibited in the Kunstsammmlungen Museum in Chemnitz, Germany in 2007 and London’s Halcyon Gallery earlier this year. Now they come to Sydney’s newest gallery, 28 Spring Street in Bondi Junction.

Unlike the delicacy of his drawings, Dylan’s paintings are expressive and vibrant, with several versions of some of the same images using different colours and tones which result in a dynamic variety of impressions and emotions. The resulting collection, published by the Washington Green Fine Art Company, has a limited number of no more than 295 copies worldwide. All are personally signed by the artist.

BOB DYLAN - international music legend – has sold over 110 million albums and given thousands of performances around the world. In a career spanning five decades, he has released forty-four albums with iconic and enduring hits like Blowin’ in the Wind, The Times They Are A-Changin, Like a Rolling Stone, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door and Make You Feel My Love. In 2001, Dylan received a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for best song from a motion picture for “Things Have Changed” from the movie Wonder Boys. His memoirs, Dylan’s Chronicles – Volume 1 was a world-wide best seller and in April this year he was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize for “his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power”.