Xtra Diary: Who’s the man who had a brush with artist Robert Lenkiewicz? - 1960s picture causes a stir in art world
Published: 12 March 2010
A brush with Lenkiewicz.
A FRIEND of Diary’s once felt a tremor of tugging emotion when he noticed a woman at the Boundary Gallery in St John’s Wood and realised he was looking at the same face that hung in his front room, as it were.
The woman had been painted by that extraordinary artist Robert Lenkiewicz, while living with him in Plymouth.
Robert, a great believer in sexual freedom, was thought to have had 12 “wives” who bore him more than 10 children and the woman had been one of the artist’s mistresses.
Since Robert’s death eight years ago his paintings have grown in value as his reputation spreads in the art world. Never one for leading a normal life, he didn’t appear to care a jot for his career. He had turned his back on the London art scene in the 1970s and settled in the west country. Nor did he care for money.
He would paint portraits for small amounts of money, sometimes not charging at all. But when he earned large sums of money he didn’t think there was any need to pay tax.
After his death, his estate was reckoned to owe the Inland Revenue £2million, a sum only settled after three big auctions.
Now, the last private collection of his work, 75 paintings in all, is on show this week at Gallery 27 in Cork Street in the West End.
The show is acting as a trailer for what will probably be the last big auction of his work in Exeter on March 20.
The paintings belong to Sam Adair, a west country man, who is moving to Australia and is disposing of his collection.
What caught Diary’s eye was a portrait of a young man painted in Hampstead where Robert grew up with two brothers and parents who were refugees from Austria.
Robert painted a lot of local people while a student at St Martin’s School of Art in the 1960s, and, like my friend who suddenly found the woman who had sat for him, Diary wonders who was this young man.
He would be in his 60s today. Does he still live locally?
Do any readers recognise the face?
People’s game is deepest red?
LONDON Assembly member Murad Qureshi is what pub pundits would witheringly dismiss as a typical Man United fan.
That is to say he lives in London (OK the joke is usually Surrey) and rarely travels beyond Watford Gap.
But Mr Qureshi has done his bit to show he bleeds Lancashire as well as Labour red this week, speaking out in protest against the Glazers’ control of the club he has supported all his life.
Writing in the political weekly Tribune he spoke of his experience in joining the green and gold protest at Old Trafford. “It was a strange experience to find myself at Old Trafford as a Cockney Red changing my colours to green and gold (till the club is sold)”, he wrote. He argued that supporters should take over the club in a deal similar to Barcelona.
“The ideal now would be mutual control of the club, with Manchester United owned and run by its supporters and investors. According to Barcelona’s statutes, the club exists for the pursuit of sporting excellence. The current debate among Manchester United fans is about how we can achieve something similar.”
He has called on the government to protect what he calls the people’s game.
Raphael’s new Glittering Prizes
OSCAR-winning Frederic Raphael unveiled his latest novel Final Demands at Daunt Books in Marylebone.
Among 40 or so guests at the launch were Alistair McGowan and Tom Conti, who plays the principal character in a Radio 4 adaptation of the work now being broadcast. It is the final part of the Glittering Prizes trilogy about a group of Cambridge University friends as they enter middle age and the dawn of New Labour.
It is published by JR Books.
Simon’s blessing’s paved with good intentions
ROAD works have driven many a motorist to call for divine intervention.
So it seems appropriate that it should be a man of the cloth who blessed the shiny new paving stones that mark the end of an orange-cone nightmare in Covent Garden this week.
Reverend Simon Grigg from the renowned actors’ church, St Paul’s, stopped some traffic of his own when he marked the occasion by sprinkling holy water on the junction of Long Acre and St Martin’s Lane.
The £3.7million makeover has taken two years to complete, and has increased pavement space by 60 per cent.
Needless to say, it wasn’t a duty he was particularly familiar with.
“I come across many unusual situations in my line of work but this has to be one of the most unusual. I’ve certainly never been asked to bless a road before, so it’s a first for me.
“The success of the many theatres in the area, the shops, restaurants and the livelihoods of all those involved, from street performers to opera singers, waiters to shop assistants, all depend on Covent Garden attracting visitors,” he said.
Diary hopes Reverend Grigg prayed for no more works in the near future.