Ever wondered if Kanye West can draw?
Kanye West can draw extremely well, which came as a surprise to some people when a collection of sketches he made in high school was brought to the public eye by his cousin who owns them. Art critics value these drawings at around twenty grand!
Read on to learn more!
Kanye’s Sketches are Very Impressive
Kanye’s artwork was brought to the public eye this year after it received a rave review from an art appraiser, Laura Woolley of the appraisal service Collector’s Lab in Los Angeles, on the PBS show Antiques Roadshow. Wooley valued the five drawings featured on the show at $16,000 to $23,000! “What really attracted me to these pieces was the fact that a lot of people are probably not aware of how talented he is an artist outside his music career,” she said, adding, “These pieces demonstrate an extraordinary facility as an artist.”
The sketches featured on the show included two portraits, two landscapes, and a surreal drawing of a multi-eyed, horned figure in chains. All five are done in graphite and gouache on scratchboard. Kanye made these drawings at the age of 17 when he was studying at the Polaris Charter Academy in Chicago. The collection was a part of Kanye’s mother’s estate, and his first cousin-in-law inherited them as a part of the said estate when his mother passed away in 2007.
These are only a mere section of the work that Kanye has done, meaning that his entire collection would be worth much more. Kanye isn’t the first to make his artwork public; other celebrities who have done this include Jim Carrey, Anthony Hopkins, Val Kilmer, Lucy Liu, and Paris Hilton. “It’s an interesting thing when you look at the art that’s done by a celebrity… the values rise and fall along with the popularity of the celebrity,” Woolley said in the same episode.
Kanye Has Shared His Art Publicly Many Times
Kanye West has ventured into the world of art in general and the world of contemporary art, in particular, many times before. A famous instance would be his two-night exclusive exhibition at the Los Angeles-based gallery Blum & Poe, where he premiered an exclusive, two-night viewing of his exhibition called Famous. The exhibition consisted of a controversial installation – that of twelve silicon celebrities sleeping together in bed.
Kanye attended this exhibition remotely through a screen to present his work. Those in attendance included his wife, Kim Kardashian West, and his sister in law Kendall Jenner, as well as the actress Olivia Munn. W magazine reported the story first, and said that the gallery owner Timothy Blum referred to West’s work as “a serious piece of art” during the opening, and later added in a CNN interview, “If you didn’t know that this was a work by Kanye West, and instead was the work of a known artist in the art world, the perception of the piece would be completely different—it would be celebrated and universally supported at the highest level.” The exhibition made around $4 million in its two nights.
Kanye has other ties to art as well, like his many collaborations with contemporary Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, with whom he has made album covers. Two famous examples are the cover for his 2007 album Graduation and the cover for his joint album with Kid Cudi. Kanye has also donated $10 million to James Turrell’s Roden Crater, a large scale art installation created in a volcanic cinder cone. He shared some of his sketches on Instagram previously, but these posts have been removed now for unknown reasons.