John Lurie (Minneapolis, 1952) is a charismatic and eclectic artist, paints, he writes; when he writes, he paints. The two tasks of painting and writing are not, in his case, separate nor does one have the upper hand over the other: the marks of writing (words) together with painted forms is the harmonious theme of the same expressive score. John Lurie has been painting since the 1970s. Most of his early works are in watercolor and pencil, but in the 2000s he began working in oil. In 2011, he said of his art, “My paintings are a logical development from the ones that were taped to the refrigerator 50 years ago.” His work has been exhibited since July 2003, when two pieces were shown at the Nolan/Eckman Gallery in New York City. He had his first solo gallery exhibition at Anton Kern Gallery in May and June 2004 and has subsequently been exhibited at Galerie Daniel Blau in Munich, Galerie Lelong in Zürich, the Galerie Gabriel Rolt in Amsterdam, the Basel International Art Fair at Roebling Hall and the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the NEXT Art Fair in Chicago, the Mudam Luxembourg, the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, Gallery Brown in Los Angeles, and the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. The Museum of Modern Art has acquired some of his work for their permanent collection. Lurie has released two art books. Learn To Draw, a compilation of black and white drawings, was published by Walther Konig in June 2006. A Fine Example of Art includes over 80 reproductions of his work and was published by powerHouse Books in 2008.