I want people to see it, not bump into it.”
He tuts with irritation, and watches as his instructions are followed, very necessarily, to the letter. Somebody fetches him an espresso, his third of the day, and slowly his latest art exhibition is beginning to take acceptable shape.”Better,” he says. “Much better.”Ten minutes later, Wood has invited me to what passes for the gallery’s backstage area. We sit, side by side, on an enormous lounger, and he lights up a cigarette that will not, by anybody’s counting, be his last of the day. For a man rapidly approaching his 60th year, he is looking surprisingly good There isn’t an ounce of fat on his whippet-thin body. Raised veins line ropey arms, he still boasts a full head of thick black hair, and his imposing Roman conk is quite fabulous. Today, the Rolling Stones’s long-serving second guitarist has his artist’s hat on.

Wherever the band’s current world tour, A Bigger Bang, visits, so too does the Ronnie Wood Art Show, pitching up at a local gallery to considerable fanfare.”Good here, innit?” he says, eyes wide as saucers. It’s certainly better than it was in Germany a week previously when, after it became clear that the man himself wouldn’t be able to grace the gallery due to band commitments, the owner promptly cancelled the show. But here in Amsterdam, Wood’s art is the cause of much excitement The local press has been praising him in glowing terms. “I like it when journalists are nice to me,” he beams, “and it’s happening more and more. When I first started all this, it was mostly music fans that came along, Stones fans But now.. now, I’m being taken seriously. I’ve got highfalutin’ art collectors and everything! I’ve even got poncey, snooty British art critics on my side. It’s true! They’ve accepted me, and it’s blown my mind, I’ll be honest with you, it has But then, let’s face it: I paint well I know it, you know it.

There’s no arguing really, is there?”He is unquestionably a versatile artist, and his latest exhibition is as thematically eclectic as it is possible to get. In a space no larger than your average Starbucks, he is showing his landscapes, his nudes and his – wait for it – sabre-toothed tigers. Over there are the racehorses, the crowded Afghan commuter buses, and Jim Morrison next to Marvin Gaye alongside Bob Marley. And then, in pride of place, are the ones that Wood is most famous for, the studies (in pencil, in paint, and what looks like crayon) of the Rolling Stones These are by far the most jarring of his works.