Customer Reviews

Paul McCartney: Paintings

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Paul McCartney only cautiously agreed to publish this book of paintings, fearing, quite rightly, he would be categorized as just a 'celebrity painter' - the Stallone and Curtis kind. "I know I'll be getting a few snide comments for doing this book - it seems that if you approach the art world by one route, that's OK, but if you've come via another route, then it invites prejudice. In fact [...], one 'critic' wrote that I 'shouldn't be allowed to do this.'"

The simple, almost child-like honesty with which McCartney comments on this crossing into a different field, manifests itself in his paintings: they carry schoolboy-naughty titles like 'The Queen After Her First Cigarette' and 'Bowie Spitting', often display bright, simple colors, and have the kind of surprised pleasantness - for example "Ancient Connections" - which is often associated with children.

That said, his work is actually pretty good. Its diversity (there are abstract paintings, figurative paintings, portraits, surrealist ones) is a plus, as is the execution, which reveals McCartney has a keen eye for colors and shapes (composition and detail, i.e. the more technical side of painting, are of lesser interest to McCartney, who said: 'I like the primitive approach, so if I learn to sail I don't take sailing lessons: I get into a boat and capsize a lot. It's actually very much my philosophy and it works equally well in painting and in music.')

For people who are unaware, it should be pointed out that McCartney was a key figure in sixties' London, not only in the music field but also in the underground movement, doing collages, experimental music (long before Lennon), and drawings for the International Times paper and Indica Gallery, as well as collecting Magrittes and befriending Willem De Kooning. Also, he was the brain behind such legendary covers as "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band" (1967) and "Abbey Road" (1969).

Some of the paintings in this book remind of the ones featured in the "Standing Stone" CD booklet, which he'd done to illustrate the story of that 1997 classical piece. Big, three-dimensional (it's as if they're made out of shiny plastic) figures with soft, often sandy yellow, pastel colors. In paintings like "Unspoken Words", "Ancient Connections" and "Yellow Celt" (all featured in this book) McCartney effectively uses this style. They are the best ones in his catalogue.

In a way, his paintings - bright, simple, enjoyable, shapely - are the equivalent of his musical work. His approach is best summed up by himself: "In my mind I have a friend who is Luigi. Luigi owns a restaurant and he's got an alcove, and he always needs a painting for it. So whatever I'm doing, if I ever get that terrifying moment I say: 'It's for Luigi's alcove, Luigi will like this.' And he just lets me off - it frees my head for two seconds and then I'm over the hurdle and I can carry on. Luigi's alcove is one of my huge saviours."

Regardless of the high brow reviews of this book, I chose to purchase this book to see if this was another celebrity who found art and realized their celebrity could sell their art. Bottom line I had hoped that McCartney's personality would triuumph and his down to earth philoposphy would come through. Indeed it did and this is the first Unpretentious book on Art I have ever read. If anyone has the desire to paint, draw or create but is held back through social conditioninig this book is for you. McCartney albeit through interviews and ghost writers tells how he himself freed himself from his own perfectionist procrastination mode and at the age of 40 painted. What resulted I found to be liberating in the way that in his celebrity circle of friedns he learned from William De Kooning how to "kill the canvas" and get over the fear of standing in front of a blank canvas. Additionaly McCartney goes onto explain his creative process for his paintings again influenced by De Kooning. He discussed how he would write a friends name on a canvas or a sketch or just a smudge of paint and see what stimulated his creative enery to produce and be led by creativity instead of coming to the easle prepared with a pre-conceived idea. McCartney never pretends to be a De Kooning or indeed a high brow artist. He comes across as someone who enjoys the process and output that art offers. Through his own conditioning he is also seeking the feedback for his efforts, regardless of the technicalities I for one see his work as inspirational and has encouraged me to go and "kill the canvas" myself.

It's a joy to flip through this book of wildly inventive faces and colorful dreamscapes. There is a freedom and a vibrance to McCartney's paintings, that, like his music, can't help but draw you in and infect you with a buoyant kind of wonder.

These paintings tear at the boundaries of what you think can and can't be done. They're appealing and yet completely unpredictable. In short, they are paintings from the same imagination that came up with both "I Will" and "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?" and then had the not-so-common-sense to put them back-to-back on the same record.

McCartney is obviously setting the artist inside free with these bold, bright canvases. Whether this is great art, that is really a question that each pair of eyes must answer in its own way, in its own unique language.

I for one am glad that McCartney has chosen to make his paintings public. I find these colorful canvases, and the artisitic courage that propelled them into being, quite inspiring.

This is not expressly about McCartney's art as it is about the creative process. Many of these paintings are reminiscent in some ways of outsider art (art brut). Much of it is primitive/naive art, but all of it provokes (at least for me) a great deal of joy. Paging through it, I found myself laughing out loud at the silly characters -- Shock Head, Green Head, etc -- that reveal a glimpse into the soul of one of this centuries more creative people. I live in New York and see a lot of art (some extraordinary, much of it quite bad). But in the last year alone, I have been privileged to see works by Egon Schiele, Sue Coe, Edward Gorey,and Lucian Freud, to name but a few. I would hardly call McCartney a master, but he is competent and he's much fun. To the reviewer who dismissed McCartney's art out-of-hand, citing that it was John who was the art student: art (true art) is not about precision or literal interpretation. Quite the contrary. It's about freedom. Breaking out of the box. It's other worldly. McCartney's stuff, on that level, succeeds.

I finally got over my block about not understanding modern painting by deciding that if it said something to me, attracted me in some way, then it didn't matter if I had read the explanatory treatise or not. At least two thirds of these paintings speak to me. The paintings will take you immediately out of the territory of the realistic, and sometimes beyond the land of representation. There are a number of pictures of faces, although they should probably not be called portraits (except the one of Linda McCartney)--they are pictures of types of people, or studies of emotion in color and line. Boxer lips, Scratch man, and several other face pictures are powerful, even disturbing to some people. There are three near-abstractions of beach landscapes that communicate the heat, the lassitude, and the mesmerizing colors of being at the beach wonderfully. There are two pure abstract paintings here, Red abstract, white moon, and Mr. Magritte's ruler, that are as good as any abstract I have seen or hope to see--the artist has temporarily *become* a color, found its root, and celebrated its awful purity. There is, as you would expect, a lot of humor in some of the paintings, and a lot of pure play: with the paint, with chance strokes that become people (David Bowie, Andy Warhol, John Lennon), and with stylistic tricks recovered from the ancient Celts. It is a large visual world, and an intense one, that McCartney gives us. If all you know about the artist is "Yesterday", you will probably be surprised; if you know Standing Stone, you won't be surprised at all. If you like serious painting by serious painters, you will thank Willem deKooning for befriending this artist when he was a nervous beginner. He's a confident painter now, and a very interesting one.

Among hundreds of art books in my collection, Paul McCartney's Paintings is one of the 5-6 I return most often to.
His are very personal paintings - as he admits himself. I find them beautiful and inspiring, every time after viewing the book I feel like grubbing the brush myself...
Are they professional?
If by that we mean 'commercial' - I believe they are not.
But they represent very special type of abstract expression: inspired by but not necessary aspiring to "approach the style of the models (de Kooning in this case)" as some very pompous reviewer wrote in Publishers Weekly (cited by Amazon), expression of a deep intellectual persona.
The interview with the artist and discussion of the more significant paintings presents very unpretentious, down-to-earth and passionate painter.
There are thousands of us - painting our hart out for our own use, craving a feedback, but not necessary willing to step out from our own, intimate world...
Who knows, we may encounter an art 'specialist' like those two who gave 1-star valuations of the book (Jim-the-good-guy or the Anonymous). The two who wrote just to write something negative about a celebrity stepping out-of-the-line, rather than presenting their point of view. That's probably their only chance to 'get' an over-achiever, excelling in yet another field of art and adding more to his celebrity - all what most of us desire, but very few achieve. I bet that these two buy tabloids and devour tasty details of Paul's divorce...
But the biggest put-down comes from the above mentioned Reed Business Information (?) reviewer. 'Inane titles', not even approaching the style or significance of the 'master', one, (truly weak) sentence, taken out of context from otherwise interesting, intimate discussions between Paul McCartney and Wolfgang Suttner, and, finally, the "loose assortment of little-known art journalists with varying degrees of separation from McCartney" - how else to display high-brow disgust... on implied self-promotion of Paul McCartney.
As I mentioned before, I have access to hundreds of art books. Most of them were written by independent, well-known, influential and knowledgeable art critics... Most of the books are un-readable art-gab - I keep them just for the pictures of, otherwise, great art.
I recommend this book to anybody who likes free, un-educated but sophisticated abstract art.
I can only hope that the artist continues to paint and we will be able to see more of his internal life on canvas - it's very interesting.

Paul McCartneys is not only a great recording artist, but he is a GREAT painter as well. He is a true artist. I enjoy his art very much, and I was extremely impressed that he can paint the way he can. I would place right up there among Picasso and Chagall. He's that good.

Amazing artist in every right. Usually linked to his amazing song writing and singing talents but as most true artists he excells in other media as well. Well written, well thought out explanations of his tutorials in visual art. Great book!

if you like Paul mccartney this book is for you, it shows his artistic ability as a painter. Beautiful pictures of his work.

This is a beautiful book and a rare find. The book arrived in good condition and I am very pleased to add it to my collection. Thank you.