Illustration of “The Kentucky Derby, Decadent and Perverted”, 1970
Image credit: © Ralph Steadman Art Collection Ltd.
Print on paper, 27 x 21 cm
Well, apparently, I wasn't the man he was supposed to meet. [Hunter S. Thompson] In the Kentucky Derby ever. It was supposed to be Pat Oliphant. I had never heard of Hunter Thompson, but I remember when we met he said to me, “What's that weird growth on your chin, Ralph?” I had a goatee at the time. I told him it was a beard, and he said, “Well, I'm not going to leave it there. You look like a weirdo with tangled hair and stringy warts. I'd cut it off if I were you.”
He was a year younger than me. He was the strangest man ever. He literally said, “I would feel trapped in this life, Ralph, if I didn’t know that I might commit suicide at any moment,” which he did. And that thought stuck with me for years, and the possibility that he might commit suicide at some point in the future was always in the back of my mind.
anyway, [the Kentucky Derby assignment] It was a strange kind of training or education for me because I had never met anyone like him before. I immediately noticed that he was different. He was saying strange things. And his use of language was very good. So I thought he was an interesting person and I might be able to connect with him. And that worked.
I would make little drawings in a notebook or a sketchbook, and he would love to see what we were doing. That interested him too. I wasn't writing words, I was just scribbling and notes and stuff like that.
There were a lot of people trying to sell you horse-keeping tips. He wanted me to stay away from that.
