Rock ’n’ roll artist Ruby Mazur exhibition opens in Hawaii

Ruby Mazur, ‘Rock-n-Roll Last Supper.’ Image courtesy of the artist

LAHAINA, Hawaii – Pop artist Ruby Mazur will debut his latest work, Rock-n-Roll Last Supper, a massive 5-by-12-foot oil on canvas, as part of his latest exhibit at Hawaii’s Holle Fine Art gallery at 839 Front Street in Lahaina on the island of Maui, opening on Friday, Feb. 26.

The gallery exhibit will welcome in-person guests with social distancing and encouraged mask-wearing, along with online viewing and will spotlight Mazur’s rock ’n’ roll rendition of the iconic masterpiece along with a large selection of recent, mostly music and pop-culture influenced works. Over the past 45 years, his innovative and influential artistry has been displayed in galleries around the world.

He is also offering the Rock-n-Roll Last Supper, which was three years in the making, as signed/numbered limited edition prints on museum parchment paper.

This latest exhibit at Holle Fine Art in Maui will also feature Mazur’s new original paintings and prints of Freddie Mercury, Keith Richards, Willie Nelson, Cher, Paul McCartney, Elton John/Billy Joel (diptych), David Bowie, Bob Marley, Amy Winehouse, Jerry Garcia, Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen and the first new painting of the Rolling Stones’ Mouth & Tongue since Mazur’s original was done in the early 1970s.

Ruby Mazur, raised in New York City, has been living and working in Maui for the last 15 years and launched his early career in pop art and graphics at age 21 as art director of Paramount Records. That first year he received a Grammy Award nomination for his design on the Crowfoot album cover, while he is probably best known as the creator of the original “mouth & tongue” image designed for the Rolling Stones, first used on the Tumbling Dice record sleeve in 1972.

His designs have since graced over 3,000 album covers for the likes of Elton John, Billy Joel, Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughn, Van Morrison, Jim Croce, Jimmy Buffett, B.B. King and countless others, in addition to movie soundtrack covers including Love Story, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Malcolm X and Lenny Bruce.

As a boy in Brooklyn, New York, who voraciously loved to draw, to his later years as a student at the School of Visual Arts and Philadelphia College of Art, he went on become one of the most prominent artists in rock ’n’ roll history.

Equally impressive is Mazur’s recent hardcover coffee table book Get Up … and Move On. The colorful, bold, dynamic images explode off the pages, featuring his many celebrity friends and collectors, while also serving as his first autobiography, taking you on a journey that only the man himself could have embarked upon and lived to tell about it. The book reveals the many obstacles Mazur encountered along the way-heartache, divorce, poverty and an apartment/studio fire that destroyed everything he owned. Probably most inspiring, is his bout with childhood polio, which threatened to cripple him for life, but, miraculously, did not. His resilience and determination to not let these factors defeat him, but rather turned him into a force to be reckoned with, is the reason his motto “Get Up and Move On” is what inspires him every day.

Ruby Mazur’s current battle with post-polio syndrome (PPS), a disorder of the nerves and muscles, started affecting him in 2017. PPS usually occurs 10 years or more after the original illness and can occur as long as 40 years afterward. In his case, this was triggered by the childhood bout with polio during which he endured three long years of daily physical therapy to overcome this disease, which he did.

In 2019, he was now diagnosed with post-polio syndrome (PPS). “People who had polio at a young age – it’s still in our bodies. It can come back at later times. My doctor said it’s going to get to a point where the muscles could completely deteriorate and I will be useless in my left arm and hand. For the last few years, I’ve watched my arm dwindle down to basically nothing,” said Mazur.

Through sheer determination, physical therapy and exercise, he continues to paint and create, with no intentions of stopping anytime soon. His latest works and exhibit reflect his goal to keep doing what he loves best: painting,