Jack White, the former frontman of The White Stripes, has opened his first ever art exhibition at Newport Street Gallery in south London. The show reveals a parallel creative life that the 12-time Grammy winner has maintained for more than 30 years, away from the public eye.
Before his music career took off, a teenage White was making sculptures in Detroit, inspired by an apprenticeship at a local upholstery shop. He salvaged old toys, tools and industrial objects from the streets, assembling them into oddball characters and abstract tableaux. These works accumulated quietly in studios and garages as his fame grew.
The exhibition came about after White met artist Damien Hirst in Soho in 2021. Hirst encouraged him to hold a London show and has since acted as a mentor. 'Damien has been really understanding and inspiring,' White said. 'It’s nice to be encouraged, even if the public ends up not liking any of it.'
The centrepiece of the exhibition is 'Red Tree', a recreation of a 2015 sculpture made from a dying elm tree coated in red paint. The original rotted over five years as birds nested inside. The new version, with a price tag of $1m, was built entirely by a team in the US, UK and China, with White providing only the concept. The show also features a collaboration between Hirst and White — a spin painting combined with an Eames chair — as well as White's original furniture designs, which hide objects such as a Masonic sword.
