Don Van Vliet

Don Van Vliet (1941–2010), known professionally as Captain Beefheart, was an American musician, composer and visual artist whose work in both disciplines resisted genre classification. As Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band he recorded Trout Mask Replica (1969), produced by Frank Zappa, which became one of the most critically discussed recordings in rock music for its radical fragmentation of rhythm, melody and structure. Van Vliet retired from music in 1982 and devoted the remainder of his life exclusively to painting, producing large-scale expressionist canvases that were exhibited internationally through the Michael Werner Gallery and collected by major institutions including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

  • Jack Spade, Bald Ego sells out!, no. 3, 2004, front cover, dark green ground, orange bold title, synthetic hair toupee specimen inset Bald Ego no. 3, 2004, interior spread pp. 156–157, paintings by Elizabeth Peyton, Heroes, two watercolour portrait heads, young male and female figures

    BALD EGO NO. 3 / JACK SPADE, Glenn O’Brien and Max Blagg, eds., 2004

    BALD EGO NO. 3 / JACK SPADE, Glenn O’Brien and Max Blagg, eds., 2004