Birmingham Artist 'Almost Broke' David Bowie's Nose

BIRMINGHAM, MI – As tributes to British musician and showman David Bowie light up the Internet, a Birmingham artist and gallery owner added his own story to the mix.

Bowie, the enigmatic artist who influenced a generation of musicians, died of cancer Sunday.

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Gerard Marti, director of the Robert Kidd Gallery, told The Birmingham Eccentric he almost broke Bowie’s nose in 1983.

“Because I was on the verge of committing a homicide, I opened and pushed the studio door fairly abruptly and immediately realize that by doing so, I just hit a person who was coming in on the other side,” Marti told The Eccentric. “I saw a man slightly bending over, holding his face in his hands.”

It was Bowie, who took the accident with good humor – so much so that he gave Marti a backstage pass to his 1983 Serious Moonlight Tour concert in Paris.

On the space reserved for Marti’s name, Bowie or a surrogate had written: “The man who ALMOST broke my nose.”

» Photo by Adam Bielawski via Wikimedia / Creative Commons