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Captain Beefhear t’s art, exhibited! Gary Lucas remembers Don Van Vliet – the man and his brushwork.
Abstract ’heart: Don Van Vliet, AKA Captain Beefheart, sketching in a London hotel lobby, 1977
Gary Lucas in New York, 1993
Erica Echenberg/Getty, Bob Berg/Getty
C APTAIN BEEFHEART’S career in music ended in 1982, though his last three LPs showed where he was going next, with each one featuring his painting on the cover. It’s this side of his creative life that new London exhibition Don Van Vliet: Standing On One Hand will illuminate.
Held at the Michael Werner Galler y in Mayfair, it r uns until Febr uar y 3, 2024, and will feature Beefheart art from the ’80s and ’90s. On hand to witness Van Vliet at work in all his guises was guitarist and collaborator of note Gar y Lucas, who first met Beefheart in 1971 and who worked with him from 1980’s Doc At The Radar Station to 1982’s Ice Cream For Crow.