Dylan's drawings to go on display - alongside Picasso's

He has spanned five decades as one of the world's most loved singer-songwriters, and he's still going strong. But as if that wasn't enough, Bob Dylan, the musician, poet, and living legend has confirmed that he is further extending his record as the ultimate artist, by putting some of his own pictures on display.

It emerged last night that Dylan has produced more than 200 sketches and watercolours over the years, which will go on show in October at the Kunstsammlungen art museum in Chemnitz, Germany. The collection, entitled The Drawn Blank Series, will hang in an exhibition alongside works by various European masters, including Picasso.

A curator at the museum, Ingrid Moessinger, approached the singer after seeing several of his pictures - drawn between 1989 and 1992 - in a 1994 book, Drawn Blank. "I first came across Bob Dylan's book of drawings at an historical exhibition about Bob Dylan at The Morgan Library and Museum in New York," Ms Moessinger said. "I went straight out and bought my own copy and immediately began to track down the originals."

Dylan, 66, was himself quoted by the music website NME, with classic modesty: "If not for this interest, I don't know if I even would have revisited them. I was fascinated to learn of Ingrid's interest in my work, and it gave me the impetus to realise the vision I had for these drawings many years ago."

It wasn't immediately clear what the pictures will portray. But some are said to be notable for their vibrant colours. The description reflects Dylan's extraordinary array of music over the years, earning him the name-tag Voice of a Generation.

The blues, country and rock singer rose to fame in the early 1960s when his highly political songs reached beyond the American establishment - Dylan frequently blanked reporters at press conferences - and helped popularise the civil rights movement. Tracks such as "The Times They are a' Changin'" and "Blowin' in the Wind" caught the mood for change and acted as a social commentary on the decade. While on tour in the UK in 1965 and 1966, Dylan showed an early skill for reinvention, when he suddenly "went electric", bringing on "The Band", and infuriating traditionalist fans. But the move worked, and Dylan continued to produce albums that renewed his popularity. Only last year he topped charts with Modern Times, one of his less political works but one which pleased fans with some recognisable old sounds. Having written more than 500 songs, the prolific musician is set to release another collection of his greatest this year.

Dylan has talked before of his love of artworks, characteristically emphasising that they should be popularised: "Paintings should be on the walls of restaurants, in dime stores, in gas stations, in men's rooms," he said in a wide-ranging interview after being booed over going electric. "Great paintings should be where people hang out. The only thing where it's happening is on radio and records, that's where people hang out." But news of the impending exhibition shows that times have changed for Dylan, too. He added: "Great paintings shouldn't be in museums. Have you ever been in a museum? Museums are cemeteries... You can't see great paintings. You pay half a million and hang one in your house and one guest sees it. That's not art. That's a shame, a crime. Music is the only thing that's in tune with what's happening."