A portrait of Tony who studied painting at the Slade in the 1960’s. Apparently he used to skive off and go home to play with his elaborate train set. Tony taught art in Canada and later in St Albans. He still collects train locomotives and rolling stock, very detailed die-cast models which are beautiful objects in themselves.

Maggie used to pose for the Empire group back in the mid nineties. It was a small group that met in various peoples houses and there was never more than 8-10 people. Very relaxed, do your own thing. I miss that atmosphere where only discrete background music was played and it was all very relaxed. In 2001-2 we had a spell in the life drawing room at the old art college in Hawley Square. We rented the room and model and the group was un-supervised. For some reason the rules changed and the group moved venue a couple of times and ended up in a Baptist Church. The room was huge and faced south and the group grew. A changing of the guard brought in the idea of obtrusive music of the absurd variety. So these classes now are periodically crowded and new courses are too expensive. Also I’ve noticed that many students are showing up and you would think that the art schools would provide adequate drawing courses for them, they’re paying enough in tuition fees.

This is a portrait of my friend John Cole who passed away in 2003. John was a talented self taught artist who was interested in invented portraits and he blended Surrealism with the London School. In his formative years John served an apprenticeship with Alfred Hecht guilders and framers who made the wonderful gold frames for Francis Bacon.
At some point in the future I will post some info and examples of John’s work.