First painting by Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett to be auctioned
The earliest-known painting created by the late Pink Floyd founder, Syd Barrett, is set to head to auction in the United Kingdom.
While Barrett is best known for his work on early material by Pink Floyd and the solo career that he embarked upon following his exit in 1968, the singer was also an avid painter. After leaving the music industry behind due to his worsening mental health issues and moving back to Cambridgeshire to stay out of the limelight, Barrett found solace in painting.
Before his music career took off, painting was already a vocation that Barrett would have happily dedicated his life to before Pink Floyd took him down an unexpected route. He enrolled in art school at Camberwell College of Arts to train as a painter in 1964, which inadvertently dragged him into the London music scene.
Barrett was a talented painter, but unfortunately not many of his pieces survived because he had a habit of destroying the artwork upon completion. Therefore, it’s difficult to measure how many items that he created during his lifetime.
However, Dried Flowers by Barrett is now set to earn between £6,000 to £8,000 when it heads to auction on July 30th through Thomson Roddick Callan. It was constructed by the Pink Floyd musician in 1963, when he still lived in Cambridgeshire and attended the Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology.
Currently, the owner is Brian Wernham, who is a Carlisle resident and acquired the item when it was listed at a charity auction in 2006. Initially, Barrett had given the painting to his sister, Rosemary, who sold it following her brother’s passing, with the money going towards mental health causes.
During an interview with Melody Maker in 1971, Barrett said of his love of painting: “Well, I’m a painter, I was trained as a painter…I seem to have spent a little less time painting than I might’ve done…you know, it might have been a tremendous release getting absorbed in painting. Any way, I’ve been sitting about and writing. The fine arts thing at college was always too much for me to think about.”
Barrett then explained how it became impossible to juggle music and painting: “What I was more involved in was being successful at arts school. But it didn’t transcend the feeling of playing at UFO and those sort of places with the lights and that, the fact that the group was getting bigger and bigger.”
When asked if he’d prefer to pursue a career in the music industry or be a professional painter, Barrett candidly responded, “Well, I think of me being a painter eventually.”
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