This week, Madonna took to Instagram to express her pride in two of her children, writing: ‘Today isn’t Monday… It’s Son Day!!! David at his curtain call and art by Rhed!’ The busy day saw the Queen of Pop go from supporting 16-year-old David Banda at an event, to attending an exhibition featuring works by 21-year-old Rocco Ritchie.
It was only recently that news broke about Rocco’s artistic endeavours, carried out under the moniker Rhed, since he’s been creating and exhibiting his work anonymously for a number of years. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner meets Egon Schiele with a touch of Pablo Picasso are just a handful of the 20th century artistic titans that have cropped up in discussions around the enigmatic artist. Could they be Expressionist? Or even an artist inspired by the Fauves or Futurists with their tantalising use of colour and stark, bold yet endearingly simple shapes?
Rhed landed on the art scene in 2018, and his paintings began to command five figures, championed by the ‘wealthy art elite’ as well as the likes of Madonna – who it only later transpired is his mum. Rhed (aka Rocco) was billed by Chelsea’s Tanya Baxter Contemporary gallery as ‘a young emerging artist whose cultural background is diverse and unconventional’. That’s to say the very least, growing up between New York and London as the son of the constantly evolving Queen of Pop and gangster flick director supreme, Guy Ritchie.
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Rocco is now getting his fine art degree at Central Saint Martins – a rite of passage for the artistically-minded from Jarvis Cocker to ES Devlin. He’s reportedly inspired by the likes of Banksy – who may well have planted the seed of the idea of anonymity. He’s been touted as the ‘next Basquiat’ although critical response to his work has been mixed. His paintings may draw clear inspiration from the greats but that doesn't make his work great. As Rachel Campbell-Johnston, the Times’ art critic concisely put it: ‘Talent doesn’t necessarily run in the family’. But, that’s not to put down his work too much – it’s bold and brave but possibly parallels with Basquiat is perhaps praise too far.
Rocco’s show last summer attracted both parents to the gallery on the King’s Road. It prompted a media frenzy but we were none the wiser as to the identity of the artist behind the sensation stirred. Guy and his wife, Jacqui Ainsley, as well as Madonna and her boyfriend, Ahlamalik Williams, 27, and adopted children, Mercy and David, arrived for the al fresco gathering. Similarly, a private dinner was held for his work during Art Basel in Miami.
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Rhed’s pieces, listed on Artsy, no longer have a price attached to them but they were reportedly going for £24,000 before Rocco’s identity was revealed by Page Six. Rocco Ritchie appeared in a brilliantly dapper monochrome photo shoot for The Rake magazine in August last year. Undeniably, a chip off the old block, the artist has inherited his father’s distinctive sartorial flair in an outfit that could have been lifted from a set of one of his dapper gangster films. Rocco Ritchie, we eagerly await what’s next.
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