Musician, photographer, artist and farmer are some the guises formed by the inimitable Dickie Landry in Tabitha Denholm’s portrait that comes on the eve of a new exhibition of his pictorial work. Landry moved to New York in 1969, becoming an integral member of the Philip Glass Ensemble and part of SoHo's burgeoning avant-garde art scene alongside artists Robert Rauschenberg, fellow Louisiana-native Keith Sonnier and Gordon-Matta Clark, co-founder of experimental gastronomic clubhouse Food with Landry’s then wife, Tina Girouard. “Dickie was really ahead of his time,” says Denholm of the saxophonist who collaborated with David Byrne, Paul Simon and Bob Dylan, and whose restlessness saw him branch out into black-and-white photography and abstract painting. “It was his Louisiana upbringing that taught him to do what’s necessary to survive and he took that with him as a model to New York. These days it’s pretty normal to do several things at once but at that time being a polymath was quite unusual.” In the early 2000s, Landry returned to his hometown of Cecilia, Louisiana and now resides between his family pecan farm and his apartment in nearby Lafayette, where he is surrounded by the beautiful ephemera of his extraordinarily full life.

Dickie Landry runs at Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum, Lafayette, LA from January 14 through May 3.