Bob Dylan the painter on show in Milan

MILAN (AFP) - A little known side of famous United States singer Bob Dylan has gone on show in Milan this week - a series of paintings of New Orleans that the Pulitzer Prize-winning artist produced between 2008 and 2011.

The film noir-like New Orleans series harks back to the city as it was in the 1940s and 1950s, with one painting showing a woman trying to break up a fight between two raincoat-clad hoodlums.

Dylan began painting at the height of his music career in the 1960s but has only relatively recently returned to the visual arts, publishing three collections of drawings since 1994.

The 71-year-old star, whose works already hang in various European art galleries, came to inaugurate the exhibition himself earlier this week.