Bob Dylan (b. 1941) is a worldwide cultural icon who has been inspiring audiences for six decades. Since 1961 he has released 38 studio albums and performed to millions of people across the world. Dylan’s music defies formal definition. Iconic songs such as ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ (1963), ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ (1965) and ‘Tangled Up In Blue’ (1975) have altered the course of cultural history, proving that popular music can be great art.

Having forever changed the relationship between music and language, Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016, recognised ‘for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.’ Finding inspiration in social and political injustice, poetry, literature, art, metaphysics, the endless varieties of love and loss, and music of all kinds, Dylan has produced an astonishing catalogue of songs that speak to the hearts of people everywhere, whether the songs were composed last week or fifty years ago.

Although Dylan has been producing visual art since the early 1960s, the first gallery exhibition of his work was not held until 2007, when Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Germany, unveiled The Drawn Blank Series. Since then, Dylan has produced an expansive body of work spanning drawing, painting and sculpture. This exhibition unites six series of Dylan’s visual art, along with archival pieces and brand new paintings that have never before been exhibited. Retrospectrum explores the sheer breadth of Dylan’s achievement and his monumental impact on the world as a musician, poet and artist.