A telephone call came through from the curator’s office at Guildhall
Art Gallery.
The curator was
forming an exhibition of depictions of Tower Bridge since its inception and had
wanted to show my large 1954 painting of “Tower Bridge from Bermondsey Wall”
that happens to be in the National Collection. She discovered that it hangs on
some embassy wall in a far-flung outpost of the British Empire. Thus, it was
unobtainable. So could she come around to see if I had anything else that was
suitable to show.
I rummaged around and
found a large self-portrait, done in 1965, and made up of dockland shapes –
steam from a ship’s boiler, wharves, quays, and a marker buoy. And in the
background is a rather freely painted Tower Bridge.
The curator looked at
it and declared that she had seen many paintings in her life, but not one like
this.
There were also one or
two later Landscape Recalled pastel depictions of the bridge that she liked. As
well, were records of some of my other bridge paintings that had been sold at
Christie’s and through Offer Waterman Gallery. These she would try to track
down.
The exhibition will be
held at Guildhall Art Gallery through the month of June 2014, and I am to cut
the opening ribbon.
