We lived in a small flat in Earl’s Court where the walls are covered in art.
My father had developed a small art dealing business. It was an eclectic mix a pair of classic Tivoli views that had pride of place <along with> a rather humanist madonna most all these works had no attribution apart from my father’s own aesthetically speculative eye.

We lived in a small flat in Earl’s Court where the walls were covered in art.
My father had developed a small art dealing business. Amongst an eclectic mix from the pair of classic Tivoli views that had pride of place alongside a very humanist madonna apart from warm and comforting these works had more in common most had no attribution apart from my father’s own speculative eye.

One day a huge canvas arrived by delivery van. Not only was it of known authorship but the artist had been until very recently alive whilst there was next to nothing vaguely contemporary on the walls.
The painter, Robert Colquhoun, had rather ceremoniously drunk himself to death. Presumably dropping of the social ladder his work was discarded to the local auction rooms within 10 years of it’s commission.

I am sure he was taken in both by the playful classicism of the painting as well as the back story of the artist so much so not just to have to swallow the transport costs but also to give up the wall-space enough to house numerous nicely framed landscapes.

He could have easily turned the investment within a few months but it stayed on his/our wall for the next 10 years.

Figures in a Farmyard
Robert Colquhoun, 1953
National Gallery Scotland