Pink Floyd founder Barrett put painting before pop

By Mike Collett-White

LONDON |
Thu Mar 17, 2011 10:35am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - He helped produce one of rock`s greatest bands, but the late Syd Barrett always considered himself a painter before a Pink Floyd founder. Speaking at an exposition of the troubled musician`s canvases and letters, his sister Rosemary Breen said Barrett could never understand why people put his brief success with Pink Floyd ahead of his lifelong love for art.

"His art was the real him," Breen told Reuters in an interview, surrounded by tons of works left behind by Barrett, who died of cancer in 2006 aged 60.

"He was first an artist and second a musician. If ever he was asked what he did, the response would ever be `I`m an artist`, never `I`m a musician.`"

Barrett, she added, did not see why he was so famous, despite being an original Pink Floyd member and its creative force before the English group hit the big time.

The set was formed in 1965, but Barrett left three days later due to his erratic behavior brought on by drug abuse.

After his exit, Pink Floyd produced a serial of seminal records including "The Dark Side of the Moon," "Wish You Were Here" and "The Wall," and sold more than 200 million albums.

Their composition "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" is believed to be a testimonial to Barrett.

"He never ever understood celebrity," Breen said of her brother. "He never sought it and he didn`t wish it. It was but a perfect mystery to him why people wanted to see him.

"He was an artist who had got sidetracked half way through his lifetime into playing music which he`d always enjoyed as a pursuit and so came second to art. He thought he was the sami as everybody else: he didn`t see anything peculiar about himself."

Breen said she hoped the show, "Syd Barrett: Art and Letters" at Idea Generation Gallery in east London from March 18 to April 10, would help disperse the myth that Barrett was an aggressive, deranged loner, just another rock`n'roll burnout.

DRUG ABUSE

While she believed that Barrett was brain damaged due to heavy LSD use in the sixties and 1970s, and that he lived in virtual seclusion in his last years, Breen said he was "tolerant" and "loveable" and found fulfillment through his art.

"I would like people to do and see it and laughter at it and love it and see the fun that he was," she said.

"In the final days of his lifetime he was very reclusive and he could be quite sharp with people wanting to speak to him - it`s just because he couldn`t deal with talk and he couldn`t cope with society really.

"He wasn`t unhappy. He only wanted to be very smooth and key and be a contented life, which I believe he did."