The Cure’s Robert Smith is auctioning off some signed new artwork to raise money for charity.
The frontman took to his Instagram page earlier today (October 4) to announce the news, and share details about how fans can get their hands on the prints.
“I HAVE SIGNED A4 & A3 PRINTS OF FOUR OF MY ARTWORKS – ‘ALONE’, ‘AND NOTHING IS FOREVER’, ‘ENDSONG’ & ‘”IT’S JUST THE WAY I SMILE” YOU SAID… ‘ TO RAISE FUNDS FOR @heartresearchuk,” he wrote in the caption, sharing a photo of the four pieces.
Three of the four new pieces are inspired by the band’s upcoming album ‘Songs Of A Lost World’ – their first new album since 2008’s ‘4:13 Dream’.
These are ‘Alone’ – an abstract piece that predominantly uses blacks, blues, yellows and greens – ‘Endsong’, which features a rich red sphere amid what seems to be a starry night sky, and a piece called ‘And Nothing Is Forever’, which seems to show two sculptures beneath a rich red sky.
The final piece is called ‘“It’s Just The Way I Smile” You Said’, and is an up-close portrait inspired by the lyrics of 1989 track ‘Plainsong’. Unlike the other three paintings which were made for the Heart Research UK project in 2023, this one was made in 2021.
At time of writing, one of each piece is available in both an A4 and A3 print, and come signed by Smith. Bids are currently open for fans, with proceeds going to Heart Research UK.
Bids for all pieces have already begun flocking in, and with each artwork currently having over 10 bids, the prices currently stand at between £230 and £411. Although, with nine days left on the auction, those prices are likely to jump massively.
Check out the pieces and bid on them here, and visit here to find out more about the charity.
Set to arrive on November 1, ‘Songs Of A Lost World’ has been teased by The Cure for some time now, and last month saw the band share the lead single ‘Alone’.
At the time, Smith said that the track was inspired by the Ernest Dowson poem Dregs, and went on to expand on the inspiration in a video on The Cure’s official YouTube channel.
“I rediscovered a poem by Ernest Dowson, an English poet – it’s called Dregs,” he said. “I’ve got a book and I jot down over the years things that I think [are] interesting’. Some of it’s couplets, some of it’s rhymes, some of it’s words … it’s not a journal, a lot of it’s gobbledygook.”
“Occasionally I’ll turn a page and there’ll be something and I think, ‘Oh, that’s great,’ and I’d actually transcribed this poem – I don’t know when – and I was struggling to find the right imagery for for ‘Alone’ … this poem, the opening line, I thought, ‘That’s it’,” he added.
The band have already begun teasing another new track called ‘Endsong’.
The Cure are also set to perform two world exclusive performances as part of the ‘Radio 2 In Concert’ later this month. “It’s not often we perform such intimate shows, so we’re really looking forward to this, and to sharing more tracks from the new album for the first time on 6 Music and Radio 2,” shared the frontman at the time.
The band have been teasing the new album for years now, and back in 2019 – following The Cure’s Glastonbury headline slot – Smith told NME that the album would be “merciless” and “express the darker side of what I’ve experienced over the last few years”, more reminiscent of their classic 1982 album ‘Pornography’.
Comparing himself at the time to who he was when ‘4:13 Dream’ came out, he said: “I don’t think I’ve ever changed much particularly. The core of who I am remains the same. Just like everyone, I have good days and bad days. I think I’m generally more of a balanced individual than I was 10 years ago. I’ve experienced more of life’s darker side, for real.”
Then, speaking to NME backstage at the BandLab NME Awards in2022, Smith revealed that the band were working on two albums – describing ‘Songs Of A Lost World’ as “relentless doom and gloom” and the second one as “upbeat”.
