Ken Regan: photographs from Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue
The exhibition (and book launch) features a beautiful collection of photographs by Ken Regan, who accompanied Bob Dylan on the 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue tour. Ken’s photographs will be well-known to Dylan fans, as his images appear on the cover of Desire, The Bootleg Series Volume 5 and Hard Rain.
Ken passed away unexpectedly in 2012 and we have been working with his daughter Suzanne, who is the custodian of his archive, to put together this gallery exhibition. The exhibition presents, in sizes up to 30×40 inches, a collection of photographs signed by Ken before he passed away. In common with many photographers, Ken did not keep large inventories of signed material, and typically there is just one signed example available for each of the pieces on show.
In addition to the signed pieces available, Ken’s estate issue posthumous unsigned photographs for collectors in a range of physical sizes, and so while a favourite piece may be unavailable as a signed example, help is at hand in the form of the estate authorised unsigned pieces.
This was a period characterised by some trademark hats, and many of my personal favourite pieces include Bob’s headgear of the period – be it a fur hat, or the wide brimmed hat adorned with flowers that appears on the cover of The Bootleg Series volume 5 (which he also wears in Ken’s classic ‘cup and bucket’ photograph).
I hope you enjoy the exhibition – either at the gallery or online if you can’t make it in.
A new book of Bob Dylan photographs
The exhibition also marks the start of the pre-launch period for the sixth large format limited edition book to be released by our publishing arm Ormond Yard Press, and which features, of course, Ken Regan’s Rolling Thunder images. When I met with Ken in New York in 2005, I remember well during our first meeting explaining that I was a huge fan of his work, but that I never felt that his Rolling Thunder images had been published in a format that did them proper justice. Now, ten years later, we have the opportunity to put that right with a beautiful large format limited edition book.
Rolling Thunder: Photographs by Ken Regan is a fitting tribute to a great photographer.
