A rare psychedelic drawing in black ink on paper, primarily executed by Eric Clapton with peripheral additions by his former Cream bandmate Ginger Baker and then girlfriend Pattie Boyd during a communal acid trip at his Surrey estate Hurtwood Edge, circa 1975, the artwork in the intricately detailed graphic style practiced by 1960s Cream collaborators such as poster artist Martin Sharp and cartoonist Ed Argo, featuring diverse elements ranging from the fantastical and surreal to the decorative and cartoonish, including: a central female face, partially obscured and surrounded by swirling spirals, stripes, stars, waves and other patterns; a female side-profile formed from billowing clouds, inscribed This IS MY NEW FUCK PICK, and signed E.C.; a futuristic metropolis at sunrise; a stippled beach scene; a permed rocker - probably Bob Dylan - in coat and wide-brimmed hat, slouched against a public bathroom door with a snake coiled through his legs, flanked by a sketch of a Zemaitis acoustic guitar with heart-shaped sound hole and phallic headstock, annotated YE NOB - one of numerous phallic images and references scattered throughout; a corresponding LADIES bathroom door, with a couple of EC guitar picks scattered nearby; a caricature sketch of Ronnie Wood playing guitar alongside the Rolling Stones tongue and lips logo, while a smoking figure - probably Keith Richards - announces AN OUR NEW GUITARIST, RON WOOD!!; two mod rockers in winkle pickers conducting a phallic duel, annotated NOBS AT DAWN; a Biggles-esque pilot dropping explosives from an RFC aircraft, simultaneously under fire from an enemy aircraft annotated GET A LOAD OF THAT SPUNKER BIGGLES; a Pignose amplifier picking its nose, annotated THE NEW PICKNOSE AMPLIFIER; a bald cartoon figure - possibly representing Clapton's manager Roger Forrester - peeping from behind a wall, annotated WHAT NO 10%?; and a crude doodle of Elvis Presley with a tub of Brylcreem, framed
11³⁄₄ x 16¹⁄₂ in. (30 x 42 cm.)

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Lot Essay

Evidently a skilled draughtsman, the young Eric Clapton had originally set out to study graphic design at Kingston School of Art, before falling back on his musical talent. Clapton recounts the abrupt termination of his artistic education in his 2007 autobiography: Music began to take up so much of my life that it was no surprise that my work at art school began to suffer. It was my own fault that things went this way, because initially I had been really gripped by the experience of getting involved in a life in the arts. I was quite hooked by painting, and to a certain extent by design. I was a good draughtsman, and when I enrolled at Kingston, they had offered me a place in their graphic department, which I accepted, rather than going into fine art. But once I’d got into the graphic department, I knew that I was in the wrong place, and I dropped out. My motivation died... Music was ten times as exciting, ten times as engaging, and as much as I loved art, I felt that the people who were trying to teach me were coming from an academic direction that I just couldn’t identify with. Despite his interest and output dwindling, Clapton was taken by surprise when he was kicked out art school at the end of his first year: I knew the portfolio was a bit thin, but I really believed that the work I had done was good enough to get me through. To me it was much more creative and imaginative than most of the other students’ work. But they were judging by quantity, and they booted me and one other student out, just two of us out of fifty, which was not good. I was totally unprepared for it, but it threw me back on to the only other talent I had.