Camden New Journal - Features: Nahem Shoa

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The Review - FEATURE
Published: 6 December 2007

Detail from The Bishop Startled

Vagrant Bishop imortalised in paint

JUST who was The Bishop? The first of five close readings associated with the excellent Robert Lenkiewicz exhibition at the Novas Gallery tomorrow evening (Friday) features a family friend of the artist, Nahem Shoa, who is now an artist in his own right.
Nahem knew Lenkiewicz throughout his childhood and was taught by him as he grew up. The Bishop Startled (detail right) is one of many Lenkiewicz’s paintings that Nahem loves.
“I knew the Bishop and was actually there when Robert was painting him,” Nahem recalls.
He was one of the many vagrants befriended by Lenkiewicz who extended his name Albert to call himself rather grandly Albert Edward Ernest Fisher and he claimed to be the brother of the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher. Though the truth of this was never tested, it wasn’t seen to matter one way or the other.
“He was known as The Bishop for that reason,” recalls Nahem. “He was from Derbyshire but he had a very posh Oxford accent. He was an alcoholic, but he had a fantastic charm. He appears in many of the paintings.”
But it is The Bishop Startled that will be Nahem’s focus on Friday evening – tracing the influences on the artist from Rembrandt to Caravaggio.

* Close reading with Nahem Shoa at the Novas Gallery, tomorrow (Friday), 7pm

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