Woody Guthrie Artworks

About this book

Songwriter poet writer political activist . . . and perhaps most fundamental to his work but least known about Woody Guthrie artist. "Contrary to popular mythology it was with paint brushes in hand not a guitar that Guthrie hit the road for California. He had hocked his guitar . . . and it was his artistic skills that he brokered for room and board." So begins Noras fascinating revelations about her fathers vast body of artwork. Other than the drawings for his autobiography Bound for Glory few have seen Guthries art. This is because much of it is inextricably bound into diaries and work books into which he poured his images and which are presented here for the first time. Guthrie worked as a commercial artist illustrating album covers books and newspaper columns and kept a daily record of his life and of American life in thousands of pictures. Some complement song-writing in such a fluid way that they often appear interwoven with handwritten lyrics. The stinging honesty humor and wit found in his music are also to be found in his art layering our understanding of his social political and spiritual life. In more than 300 examples his visual creativity is apparent from political cartoons to bawdy and comical gouaches to childrens art to abstract emotional outpourings. Drawing extensively on Guthries words Brower unveils an enhanced portrait of one of Americas greatest creative forces.