Portrait of a guitarist
Valery Vrady is a Russian artist who has a studio in central Moscow just behind the Tretyakov Gallery, the home of Russian art through the ages.
It’s an Aladdin’s Cave of art and installations. Every nook and cranny of Valery’s three-floor atelier is filled to bursting with visual interest, including the loo where you are invited not to drop a rat down the pan. Nudes and angels, chairs on the ceiling, paraphernalia, old telephones and typewriters, phonograms, funky junk, Mona Lisas and fashion dummies flamboyantly transformed, signs and stars… The crazy world of Valery Vrady, Russian artist.
I had my portrait with guitar done by Valery Vrady. I had never posed for a picture before, a fascinating and lengthy process.
It took five hours and so I played on for five hours. Valery insisted he wanted to capture the portrait like that.
And this is the result:
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