Ronnie Wood on his new addictions: painting, coffee, CaravaggioAs an exhibition of his work opens, the Rolling Stone explains why he puts his bandmates in his art and the joy of his young twinsEmily Prescott
November 10 2024

DAVE J HOGAN/GETTY IMAGES
Not for the first time in his life, the Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood is dealing with an addiction.
But this time, rather than the drug habit that meant he’d turn up to parties with a Bunsen burner to smoke cocaine, he can’t kick the Caravaggio.
“My most recent inspiration and obsession really is Caravaggio,” the 77-year-old said as he prepares to showcase his paintings at the Andrew Martin showroom in Chelsea, west London, on Tuesday. Six of the 27 paintings are inspired by Caravaggio and one,
Undermath, reimagines his bandmates in the style of the Italian artist’s 1600 painting
The Calling of Saint Matthew. A print version of this will be on sale for £2,000.
His bandmates thoroughly approve. “Keith [Richards] says I’m very prolific … There are so many different styles. Being a Gemini, my appetite for inspiration is so widespread. It’s a bit like my music, I go from Mozart to Marley, you know what I mean?” Wood said. “Mick hasn’t seen a lot of them live but the ones he has seen he’s really liked and he knows I’m prolific,” he added.
Wood, who grew up in Hillingdon, west London, has been painting since he won a prize on a BBC television show as a child. After school, he followed his older brothers, Ted and Art, to Ealing School of Art. “My mum and dad were so proud,” he said.
As well as Caravaggio, his other obsession is the French artist Eugène Delacroix. “I’ve got one seascape that I’m really proud of in the exhibition which is
Rough Seas after Delacroix and the band are in that. Jesus is asleep, Mick is yelling out, Steve Jordan [the Rolling Stones’ current drummer] is at the mast along with Keith. I’m up the front there,” Wood explained. This painting is inspired by Delacroix’s 1854 painting
Christ on the Sea of Galilee. Three of the 27 paintings in the new collection are inspired by Delacroix.
“I was thinking colours because Delacroix’s colours in that are just so shocking and I thought I’ve got to reproduce this. I thought people through my work, maybe they go and check out the original, you know?”
Wood often paints in a studio a mile away from his Tudor mansion in Hertfordshire and prefers to use oil paints. “My favourite process is oil painting and preferably on the larger side because oil paint stays malleable and wet for a few days, you can always step away and come back and it’s like you haven’t been away at all. It’s lovely,” he said.
“I get so obsessed with an idea that I go in and start on a canvas and sometimes I’ve been there for hours and I realise I haven’t even taken my jacket off. It’s what life is all about,” he said.
As well as the classical reimaginings of Caravaggio and Delacroix, the collection also includes portraits of Elvis Presley and Amy Winehouse. “She was a great friend of mine. She was a mixed-up kid, you know, and she was like, ‘Well, what am I going to do?’ [I said] ‘Well, just don’t put vodka in your water. Yeah. We all know you’re a drinker, mate.’ She was so loving and so lovely. As for the music, she was incredible wasn’t she? I did that one very quickly.”
Many of Wood’s friends, including Prince, Keith Moon and Winehouse struggled with addiction
In 2008, Wood started drinking again and left his wife Jo, whom he had been with for 35 years, for a teenage Russian waitress. After this, the artist Damien Hirst, a friend of Wood’s, drove him to an airport before an onward journey to rehab. Wood has had eight stints in recovery since then.
Later, he married the theatre producer Sally Humphreys, with Paul McCartney and Stewart as best men at their wedding in 2012, and went onto have twin daughters, Alice and Gracie, now eight. He has four older children, Jamie, 50, Jesse, 48, Leah, 46, and Tyrone, 41, as well as nine grandchildren.
“I have more clarity. That’s not to say that when I was in the good old days, using days, I did some great pieces on that too. Because it just made me stay longer at the canvas,” said Wood. Now he’s just got coffee to rely on. “Oh yeah. I’ve got one on the go now. I normally don’t have one after nine,” he said, at 9.45pm.
He smoked more than 30 cigarettes a day for 50 years but managed to quit before the twins were born, and said painting was vital for his health. “It’s like a workout. When I do the big canvases, I’m working away and I have to rub arnica into my hands. You know, it’s like, ‘ow, my joints are aching’,” he laughed.
“I’m just enjoying life at the moment. And Sally, my wife, she’s so encouraging to me. All of my kids have an affinity, and they love each other. The twins are so inspirational to me,” he said.
He said the twins join him in the studio on occasion: “They started to use glitter paint with their acrylics and produced some lovely stuff.” Is this the happiest he’s ever been? “It really is.”
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2024-11-11 17:57 by bye bye johnny.