A Brush with the Blues is about love. Love of music, love of painting, and love of writing. Jack Coughlin, artist, sculptor, and amateur blues harmonica player, began these portraits because of his love and respect for these giants of the Blues. The twenty-six sensitive portraits within these pages capture the essence of these Blues legends in swirls of color which sculpt the images into our minds with the sure hand of a master. The vibrancy and energy with which he renders these portraits gives them life. Mr. Coughlin, a member of the National Academy of Design, who is represented in major collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, brings his considerable skill to a subject he clearly loves. His work, including the books of his etched portraits of thirteen Irish writers and California artists and writers, have established him as a print maker of extra-ordinary ability. Now in these portraits we see him as a painter and colorist of great talent.