Jim Morrison Mugshot – Gold

This limited edition screen print continues David Studwell’s Heroes and Villains series with a young Jim Morrison, arrested in 1967 during a performance in New Haven, Connecticut, after taunting the police at the show during the song Back Door Man.

Ray Manzarek recounted that Morrison and a woman were backstage making out in a shower stall. A cop saw them, and told them to leave. Morrison refused and then was maced by the cop, who later apologised when he found out Morrison was the lead singer of the Doors. On stage, he launched into a diatribe against the cop and the police rushed the stage, arresting Morrison and charging him for inciting a riot, public obscenity and indecency.

Studwell’s work focusses on celebrity and the dark side of fame. His mugshot series explores the vulnerabilities and flaws of celebrities often hidden from public view but highlighted in these raw and public images; revealing cracks in the people we hold in such high esteem.

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The pop-style punch comes across here on screen. It is much harder for us to show the beautiful quality of Studwell’s masterful silk screen technique that makes his work so coveted and so well loved by collectors.