The Gonzo Gallery on Hyman Avenue last weekend opened a new series of pieces by the legendary “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” artist Ralph Steadman, who has illustrated a fresh body of work using large-format photographs of his longtime creative partner Hunter S. Thompson by Aspen’s own Alan Becker. Steadman, 84, has said they will be his last Thompson-related pieces, according to gallerist Daniel Joseph Watkins.
The massive photos come from series of 1990 photographs Becker took of Thompson at Owl Farm in Woody Creek.
Watkins gave the color photo prints to Steadman nearly five years ago, as the pair was at the beginning of their artist-gallerist relationship. But Steadman didn’t do anything with them until a productive stretch of the COVID-19 lockdown, when he made all nine in his studio in the English countryside.