There are moments when a simple "And why not?" (as once catchphrased by Barry Norman) is really the best response you can make. News that fashion and fabric shop Liberty has created a range of dresses and shirts decorated with paintings by Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood is one of those moments.
I quite like them. I can certainly see why the store fancied the bold, brash colours of Wood's paintings for their new line in celebrity prints. They are probably a bit less provocative than Grayson Perry's recent prints (which featured hand grenades), but it's a posh fabric with a rock'n roll twist – and I like it.
It's interesting how profoundly art's relationship with shopping has changed since the 1960s, when Bridget Riley was horrified that her abstract paintings were ripped off by fashion designers and turned into high street Op Art style. Even then she was fighting against the tide. Riley was, and is, the last of the modernists, a serious painter in unserious times. Still, in the 1960s it was still a logical position for a painter to be dubious of the embrace of commerce.
Nowadays, that's not even a thinkable point of view. Wood, with some justification, says he's proud his paintings have been taken up by Liberty – it places him in the tradition of William Morris, whose textile designs have been associated with the store since the 19th century.
Shops have become guarantors of artistic status. Having a fabric print based on your paintings is as legitimate a badge of achievement as any critic's acclaim or museum's patronage. By that standard Ronnie Wood is officially one of our leading painters.
And why not?
