Only human

The images of Bob Dylan from the mid-1960s are iconic: The mussed mop of curly hair, the plume of smoke from the ever-present cigarette, the (usually) unsmiling expression. This is the Dylan that seems most deeply etched into our collective memory, the skinny young man from Minnesota, by way of Greenwich Village, who revolutionized popular music with songs that were by turns angry, beautiful, bizarre, vivid, and hilarious. The camera seemed to love Dylan and his theatrical demeanor, and images of him as a 20-something troubadour still have the power to captivate us.

So imagine the wonder of the curators of the Allston Skirt Gallery when a local photographer came knocking at their door, bearing dozens of photographs of the young Dylan that they’d never seen before. The photographs were taken by Douglas Gilbert, an Amesbury resident and now a psychotherapist, when he was a 21-year-old photographer for Look magazine. Gilbert traveled with Dylan, then 23, for a week in the summer of 1964. But the magazine’s editors thought the singer was too scruffy for a ‘‘family’’ magazine, and Gilbert’s photos were never published. Gilbert received the negatives when Look folded in 1971, but never printed them.

Spurred in part by the production of the Martin Scorsese documentary, ‘‘No Direction Home,’’ that aired last week on PBS, Gilbert revisited his old negatives and assembled a show of more than 40 photographs. The exhibit, ‘‘Bob Dylan: Unscripted,’’ was first shown at a gallery in Los Angeles in February. At the urging of a friend, Gilbert approached Allston Skirt about running the show this fall. An opening reception will be held Friday at the gallery, and the show runs through Oct. 29. The show also coincides with the publication by DaCapo this month of ‘‘Forever Young: Photographs of Bob Dylan, 1964,’’ a book of nearly 100 of Gilbert’s Dylan photos, with text by Dave Marsh.

Dylan was Gilbert’s first assignment for Look, and he shot some 900 images of the singer over those seven days — at the Newport Folk Festival, hanging out with friends in New York City, writing in isolation at his manager’s cottage in Woodstock, N.Y. Gilbert captures Dylan at a pivotal point in his career, just as he’s growing his hair, shaking off the last remnants of his Woody Guthrie phase, and taking the first steps into what would be the most dizzyingly productive period of his remarkable career.

The show’s timing couldn’t be better. With the publication of the book, the airing of the Scorsese documentary, and the Starbucks-only release last month of the rare, previously bootlegged recording, ‘‘Bob Dylan: Live at the Gaslight, 1962,’’ it seems Dylan is everywhere. ‘‘It feels a little bit like Dylan mania,’’ says Emily Isenberg, an assistant at Allston Skirt (and a longtime Dylan fan) who helped arrange the show.

In conjunction with the gallery exhibit, Isenberg helped plan a multi-event celebration of Dylan and his work. On Oct. 11, a film event called the ‘‘Bob Dylan Mix Tape’’ takes place at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, and will include footage of Newport Folk Festival bootlegs, highlights from ‘‘Eat the Document,’’ the never-released documentary collaboration between Dylan and D..A. Pennebaker, and excerpts from ‘‘Renaldo and Clara,’’ the 1978 feature film that Dylan wrote and directed.

No proper Dylan tribute would be complete without music, and Isenberg and a friend, Dan Hirsch, who handles concert programming at the Museum of Fine Arts, put together a bill of performers whose sound and ethos are in keeping with Dylan’s early music. The Oct. 23 show, ‘‘A Nod to Bob,’’ takes place at the Paradise Lounge and includes the Thalia Zedek Band, the psych-rock band Company, and the haunting mountain music of Death Vessel.

Isenberg hopes the photo show and related events will not only celebrate Dylan’s legend, but also bring us closer to the man beneath it. ‘‘Seeing him [in one of the Allston Skirt photos] chain smoking in this weird Italian restaurant with gingham table cloths, drinking cheap wine, and looking really dirty, and with these kids running around — he’s just like this dude,’’ Isenberg says. ‘‘He’s not like this international man of mystery.’’

The opening reception for ‘‘Bob Dylan: Unscripted’’ is Friday at 5 p.m. at Allston Skirt Gallery, 450 Harrison Ave., storefront No..65, Boston. 617-482-3652. Free. The show runs Wed-Sun 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Through Oct. 29.

‘‘Bob Dylan Mix Tape’’ screens Oct. 11 at 7:30 & 9:30 p.m. at Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard St., Brookline. 617-734-2501. $6.

‘‘A Nod to Bob’’ takes place Oct. 23 at 8 p.m. at the Paradise Lounge, 969 Commonwealth Ave., Boston. 617-562-8800. $8. 18+