Ohio's Butler Museum to Host Exhibition by Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood

YOUNGSTOWN,OHIO - The Butler Institute of American Art, The Butler Institute of American Art, located at 524 Wick Avenue in Youngstown, will present Ronnie Wood: Paintings, Drawings and Prints beginning September 21st, 2010. This exhibition, accompanied by a full-color catalogue, will continue through November 21st.

Ronnie Wood is both a musician and an artist. His work as singer, guitarist and songwriter with The Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart and The Faces is well-known. Lesser-known is his ability as a visual artist. Wood has been painting and drawing since age twelve, even longer than he has been playing guitar. According to Butler Director, Dr. Louis Zona, “Ronnie Wood is a most accomplished painter whose work demonstrates a wonderful knowledge of the medium, outstanding technical abilities and an extraordinarily creative mind. The Butler is honored to host the artist’s first major American museum exhibition to showcase this remarkable talent.”

Ronnie Wood was born in Middlesex, England, and is from a musical and artistic family. Before beginning his musical career, he received formal art training at Ealing College of Art in London. As his musical career progressed, Wood continued painting and drawing. Throughout his dual-career he has also depicted the musicians with whom he plays, documented his world tours, and portrayed his recording sessions in vibrant action portraits. He also uses family and close friends, as well as the landscape, as subjects in his art work.

Over the years Wood’s work has been widely exhibited. In 1996, he had a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Sao Paulo, Brazil. He has had numerous solo shows in North and South America, in the Far East, and throughout Europe. Included in this Ronnie Wood exhibition, the first to be held at a US museum of art, are 30 paintings, 22 pen/pencil drawings, and 7 mixed media works. The show was organized by the Butler with assistance from Daniel Crosby and Danny Stern (SPS Lime Light Agency, Los Angeles and San Francisco) and Bernard Pratt (Pratt Studios, London),

The exhibition catalogue writers are Butler Director and Chief Curator Dr. Louis A. Zona, and David Shirey, Dean of the Graduate Program at Manhattan’s the School of Visual Arts, and former art critic for The New York Times. This exhibition by a well-known British artist is presented as a part of the Butler’s ongoing Influence on America Program, which features exhibitions of work by historic and contemporary artists who have been inspired by or whose work has been informed by American art.