Works By Jimi Hendrix

But who knew? It’s only in fairly recent years that it’s come to light that Hendrix was a dab hand with a pencil and brush as well as a six-string, and more importantly that he has a healthy back catalogue of creative works, some of which have found their way into the public domain and which afford us a never before seen insight into a more visually stimulating life and times of a man we all thought we knew, courtesy of the hitherto access we’ve all been granted.
We have to travel a long way back to learn of Hendrix’s first dalliances with another art – the sort that materialised a long time before he ever picked up a guitar in anger or otherwise – and to his school daze (sorry, we couldn’t help ourselves there). Hendrix’s initial etchings were of seemingly random subject matter, pictures of college footballers clad in their team strips and dramatic pictures of hydroplanes racing on Lake Washington. What was prominent from even these earliest images were Hendrix’s obsession with small details, meticulously noting down minutiae about everything about them on their reverse side, including the dates in which they were drawn and annotating them with comments about these being exact colours. Nobody’s declaring these early Hendrix pictures as masterpieces, and much can be easily dismissed, yet under closer scrutiny – and over a course of time – a definite style began to emerge in the watercolours which the famed rocker championed.

Hendrix made it his business to capture the here and now, then and there, from his unassuming, unprophocised formative years up to and through his life being played out in the public eye, although having said that at the height of Hendrix’s fame he had little time to dedicate to his second art as such and it tailed off to an extent. What’s clear to see though is that Hendrix was adamant that he wanted to transform every eventuality into a visual statement to look back on, much in the same way that his musical legacy stands as a soundtrack to his life and times. Ironically it was Hendrix’s pictorial creativity gaining impetus which inspired Hendrix the budding musician to manifest his new found creativity in song writing, and another creative department; which it’s fair to say he ultimately showed more than a little talent towards as his recording career panned out over subsequent years.With this transitional period, when song-writing took centre stage over his fledgling art, Hendrix’s paintings were acknowledged to undergo a change, with the previous leading subject matter moving out of focus, whilst the backgrounds became the new focal point, proffering a previously unheralded intensity and almost dreamlike ambience.It’s no great secret that Hendrix’s music career was fraught with problems, some of his own making it’s fair to say, and others, not so, and interspersed with a recording industry which many observers fervently believed took advantage of Hendrix’s talent. Yet despite as many lows as highs, Hendrix would desperately snatch a moment here and a moment there to open his sketchbook whilst on the tour bus, with a view to return to a more canvas-based scene to interpret his visual jottings at a later date.

Hendrix’s art met with and suffered the same initial response and fate as his music in many ways, with direct regards to it going largely unnoticed for a large period at the beginning, before finally receiving recognition and accolades in the fullness of time. The UK was far more receptive to Hendrix’s music from the outset, with London quickly becoming his adopted home and serving as the launch-pad for his accumulative musical gains. There was far more hue and cry, in a positive way when Hendrix’s seemingly ‘lost’ art first came to light here in the UK than in his native America, where it slipped by barely noticed. 40-odd years after his premature demise, Hendrix’s musical legacy lives on in existing performers and subsequent generations readily inspired by his portfolio of music, whilst the same can’t necessarily be said of his art, unfortunately. As Hendrix’s life grew more and more fractious and dishevelled, so his artwork drew a greater intensity and visual dynamic, yet this illustrative promise was never quite afforded the opportunity to grow any further or fulfil its natural potential.

Having said that, thankfully it’s not just Hendrix’s guitar that did the talking on his behalf, nor the expertly crafted lyrics that were sculpted around the music, as he left an admittedly small, yet wonderful body of expressive painting in his wake, with a predominant style as free, flowing and visually descriptive as his music. Beginning his artistic journey with considerately and measured watercolour paintings of local scenes, sports events, mountain ranges and cars, Hendrix’s brand of art eventually reflected other, less salubrious influences as his music career went into overdrive in the mid-1960s, as his LSD intake shaped and coloured a far more spirited and magical style of personal art which relied on fanciful figures telling his ever-changing story. Hendrix worked with an array of mixed media during his tragically short artistic career, although championing his watercolour pens on his signature pieces, and as well as committing most to canvas, Hendrix’s fevered doodles, transient illustrations and paintings found their way onto Album Sleeve art and the surface area of a succession of his famed guitars.