# Miles Davis Paintings: Visual Art Inspired by Kandinsky, Basquiat, Picasso, and Joni Mitchell: Video, Photos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2021/04/08/miles-davis-paintings-visual-art-inspired-by-kandinsky-basquiat-picasso-and-joni-mitchell-video-photos/
- Published: 2021-04-08T18:21:23+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Few artists have lived as many creative lives as Miles Davis in his 65s, and they
continue to evolve even after his death with the posthumous release of a lost Rubberband
album. The album cover, featuring an original painting by Davis himself, may have
turned fans into another facet of the songwriter / bandleader / trumpeter’s artistic
evolution: his career as a visual artist, which began in earnest only a decade before.
his death, in 1991.**

“During the early 1980s,” writes Tara McGinley in Dangerous Minds, Davis “made art
making as much a part of his life as music…. It was said that he worked obsessively
every day in art when he was not on tour and that he studied regularly with the 
New York painter Jo Gelbard. ” Davis, who never did anything by halves, turned out
canvas after canvas, although he did not exhibit much in his life.

![](https://i0.wp.com/depositosonoro.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/milespainting6.
jpeg?resize=640%2C847&ssl=1)

He painted mainly for himself. “It’s like therapy for me,” he said, “and it keeps
my mind busy with something positive when I’m not playing music.” Being the intimidating
Miles Davis, however, it wasn’t exactly easy for him to find artistic partners to
communicate with. When he first approached Gelbard, the artist said: “I was scared
to death! He could barely speak.”

The two lived in the same building in New York and Gelbard eventually relaxed enough
to give Davis lessons, then became his girlfriend, collaborating with him on works
like the cover of the 1989 album Amandla. How she characterizes his style :

“The way Miles painted was not the way he touched or the way he drew. He was so 
minimal and light in the sound of him, in his walking. His body was very light; 
he was a thin man, a delicate type. His sketches are light, airy and minimal, but
when he took the brush and paint from him he was like a child with paints in kindergarten.
He would pour it in and mix it until he got too foggy and painted too much. He loved
the texture and the feel. His clothes, hands and hair got stained and it was fun
for him… ”

Miles also found a partner in the painter Joni Mitchell. She describes how he called
her one day and said, “Joni, I like that painting you made. Nice colors. I want 
to come and see you paint. ” Davis, her musical hero, would not record with her (
although he later learned that he owned all of her records). “He was talking about
painting but not about music with me.”

A hardcover edition of his collection of paintings appeared in 2013, with a foreword
by Jones, perhaps the most avid of Miles Davis collectors. There are many other 
voices in the book, including author Steve Gutterman, who interviewed Davis before
his death and writes an introduction, and various family members contributing personal
stories. Miles sums up his own “refreshing and unassuming attitude” toward his artwork
in a short statement: “It’s not that serious.”

⌊Las pinturas de Miles Davis: el arte visual inspirado por Kandinsky, Basquiat, 
Picasso y Joni Mitchell⌉⌊Las pinturas de Miles Davis: el arte visual inspirado por
Kandinsky, Basquiat, Picasso y Joni Mitchell⌉

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