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Adam Cohen, son of Leonard, sounds faintly amused by the fuss over his dad's drawings. “You can't help but chuckle at the irony that our old man is now an exhibited artist – and entirely unintentionally so,” he says, laughing, over the phone from Los Angeles.

To be fair, the idea is relatively new to the Cohen household: The Vancouver exhibition will be only the third time the 37 works by the Canadian singer-songwriter have been shown publicly – after Manchester, England, in July, 2007, and this summer's Toronto Luminato Festival. Running until Dec. 31, the Vancouver exhibition begins on Friday, but Adam Cohen will be in town for a launch party at Canvas Gallery in Gastown today.

“I'm carrying out ambassadorial duties,” he explains. “I'm there in the absence of any other Cohen being able to attend, to see the operation is well handled.”

The images include many self-portraits, as well as drawings of Leonard Cohen's homes in Montreal and on the Greek island of Hydra. They include a variety of media – napkin doodles, pastels, watercolours, charcoal sketches, digital images produced by drawing on a computer tablet.

Many of them were used to illustrate his 2006 poetry collection, Book of Longing, while others have become cover art for his CD releases. A selection of limited-edition prints will be available for purchase.

For Adam, these works are much more than just pictures on a wall. They have a more “intimate evocation” even than photographs for him, he says. “These are not just images I've seen my whole life, but images I saw being created. I remember the actual days these were drawn. I know the objects, the scenes, the people … ”

He remembers his father always getting up earlier than the rest of the family to take advantage of the quiet. It was a time devoted to creativity and, if words weren't coming easily that day, his father would start drawing instead.

“By the time we would wake up,” Adam recalls, “There would be a collection of new lyrics and often new drawings on the breakfast table.”

His father describes the works as “notebook instalments,” he says.

“And that's certainly the way I see them too,” he says, adding that when he and his sister, Lorca, were children, they paid little attention to the continually growing piles of drawings.

As an adult, though, he looks at them differently – not just as documents that surrounded him as he grew up, but also as another manifestation of his father's unique voice. “I think it's pretty amazing that even in something that he scribbles, there's this inimitable and distinct voice evident in his work.”

A singer-songwriter in his own right, Adam is open and generous about his relationship with his father. He talks of “filial devotion” and the inspiration he gains from his father as a “chamber of luxury.

“I have been very privileged to have a cat like my own father leaning over my own notebooks, or chiming in on my recordings.”

He is now a father of a son himself – 19-month-old Cassius Cohen. “I can only hope that I can offer my own son the level of support and encouragement that my father did – I hope that I am as exemplary.”

He says he regularly receives copies of his father's latest drawings – either scanned and e-mailed, or computer-generated – and usually annotated with humorous observations.

But he insists that Leonard has no ambition to be remembered as a visual artist – he is just delighted and surprised, along with the rest of his family and friends, that people like the work.

“Leonard Cohen – man of lucky breaks,” he says, laughing, “successful musician, exhibited visual artist. … What's next? Pottery?”

Leonard Cohen: Artworks will show at Linda Lando Fine Art, 2001 W. 41st Ave., Vancouver, from Friday until Dec. 31 (www.lindalandofineart.com).