Bob Dylan Has Another Career That Might Surprise You

Collectors of Bob Dylan records likely have his 1968 collaboration with The Band, "Music from the Big Pink," on their shelves (via Rolling Stone). And no Bob Dylan collection would be complete without his 1970 album "Self Portrait," (per AllMusic). But even the most ardent Bob Dylan fan may not have taken the time to consider the covers of each. Sure, they're both paintings. But who painted them? It was Bob Dylan himself, it turns out, who's been a visual artist nearly as long as he's been a musician, as Happy Mag notes.

According to the BBC, Dylan picked up a paint brush in 1966, one year after he went "electric," and the very same year an audience member called "Judas" at Dylan while he was touring in the UK, as Rolling Stone reports. From there, Dylan continued to explore his interest in visual art, and from that point onward, he worked on sculpture, drawing, and painting with nearly as much effort as he put into music. He spent time studying art with Ashcan School tutor Norman Raeben, about which Dylan said (via Castle Fine Art), "He put my mind and my hand and my eye together, in a way that allowed me to do consciously what I unconsciously felt."