You all know I love appropriated art and apart from my own works, I really like Richard Prince’s stuff. I have a few of his record covers. His latest exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills shows three giant “paintings” of Bob Dylan culled from Jerry Schatzberg’s famous portrait used on the cover of Dylan’s 1966 Blonde on Blonde album cover. The Gagosian exhibition that opened on February 27th, 2025 was tied to the release of the Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown.

Prince has cropped the original image and blown it up to ten feet by ten feet (3 x 3 m).

Prince says in the exhibition blurb that “sometimes, when I walk into a gallery and see someone’s work, I say “gee, I wish I’d done that.“” So, he must have admired Schatzberg’s cover picture. The works are titled “Untitled (Dylan)” 2014.

My reproductions of album covers are puny in relation to these Dylan portraits–only 45 x 45 cms but I draw/paint mine; Prince has used an inkjet printer to make his. Quite impressive, though, given the size of the portraits.

But I sympathise with Richard Prince in that I also can walk into a gallery or museum and see someone’s work say “Gee, I wish I’d done that!”