John Mellencamp: American Paintings and Assemblages Coffee Table Art Book Available Now

John Mellencamp’s highly anticipated coffee table art book John Mellencamp: American Paintings and Assemblages will be released on November 15th via Rizzoli New York. The book features 170 original works, essays from David L. Shirley and Bob Guccione Jr., and a forward written by Dr. Louis A. Zona.

Watch Mellencamp discuss his art on “CBS Mornings” HERE

Purchase the book HERE.

Watch Mellencamp’s recent conversation on TODAY HERE

Before John Mellencamp embarked on a musical career, he seriously contemplated pursuing a career as a painter. While both outlets offered him creative expression, music knocked a bit louder, and so started the path that made him the acclaimed singer-songwriter we have known for over four decades. Mellencamp never gave up his artistic aspirations however, continuing to paint as he wrote songs, recorded in the studio, and toured. His large-scale oil portraits and mixed-media assemblages document America’s heart and soul, revealing unsettling but beautiful truths with an anti-establishment frown and a rich sense of narrative.John Mellencamp: American Paintings and Assemblages is the definitive survey—curated by the artist himself—of Mellencamp’s oeuvre as an expressionist painter, grabbing our attention through the canvas. For example, Mellencamp’s 2005 ode to Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. titled Martin Luther King shines a spotlight on how society has fallen short on King’s renowned dream by incorporating the text “Martin Luther King Had a Dream and This Ain’t It” into the painting.

Full of self-portraits made over the years, as well as portraits of other well-known subjects—including Marlon Brando, Johnny Cash, and Meg Ryan—as well as a variety of everyday people, Mellencamp’s art is storytelling at its finest. 

Mellencamp is a member of the Rock and Roll and Songwriters Halls of Fame, a recipient of the John Steinbeck Award, ASCAP Foundation’s Champion Award, The Woody Guthrie Award, the Americana Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and most recently, the Founders Award, the top honor assigned by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.

JOHN MELLENCAMP: AMERICAN PAINTINGS AND ASSEMBLAGES 
By John Mellencamp 
Foreword by Dr. Louis A. Zona 
Essays David L. Shirey and Bob Guccione Jr. 
Hardcover / 11” x 12” / 256 pages / 170 artworks 
$65.00 US / $85.00 CAN / 47.95 UK 
Rizzoli New York / ISBN: 978-0-8478-7234-3 
ON SALE: November 2022