The Pogues’ frontman Shane MacGowan has announced the release of a new book featuring his own artwork, photos and handwritten lyrics throughout the years, from his childhood up to the present day, taking us through six decades of the singer-songwriter’s life.
The book will also have a foreword by American actor Johnny Depp, as well as art critic Waldemar Januszczak. Depp, a collector of MacGowan’s artwork, had this to say in the foreword: “It’s rare for a creative genius like Shane to have one avenue of output. Such an incendiary talent is likely to have a multitude of facilities …. And so, revealed here, is Shane’s propensity for the wild, for the absurd, for the political, for the beautiful …. but, regardless of medium, his work will always be full of poetry – a bit like the great man, and my great friend, himself; the artist, Shane MacGowan.”
Fans will also get to see pictures of MacGowan’s notorious nightlife. Nights out with, among many, Bob Dylan, Nick Cave and fashion model Kate Moss will apparently be on display, along with a number of MacGowan’s sketches, character studies, paintings, self-portraits, stories and “abstract snippets”. However, it’s a marvel in the first place that such a wealth of material has become available in the first place.
MacGowan’s wife (and collaborator on the book), Victoria Mary Clarke, has said that they only found the drawings during the making of last year’s documentary on MacGowan – Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds With Shane MacGowan – when her mother found thousands of the drawings, which she delivered in a bin bag. She said “we didn’t even know it existed, it was miraculous, like finding a crock of gold!“
It seems an important venture for the famous musician, for whom art has been a life-long passion. He said in a statement that art was “one of the only O levels I got”. The singer has had a history of designing his own album covers, such as The Pogues’ Red Roses For Me and If I Should Fall From Grace With God. He also noted some of his favourite artists and stylistic periods, ranging from the renaissance (such as Caravaggio) to the impressionists (Lavery, Brendan Fitzpatrick) and the surrealists (Dali, Chagall), opining that “there’s millions of them”.
The collection is set to be released next April, but it will be limited to only 1,000 copies, so it’s best for fans to get in quick. If you want to pre-order now, you can look here. If you want to read more about the upcoming release, you can look here. If you want some Christmas cheer, you can look below, and reminisce with this Pogues classic.
