started my career as a Portraitist, and from 1962 to 1977 I travelled the world making portraits - mostly drawings - of the rich and famous, the so-called "glitterati". There is a certain superficial quality about that which did not suit my temperament at all, so as soon as I could afford to do so I retired from portrait painting to paint whatever inspired me. With the huge range of acquaintances I had by then, I was able to sell my work to ex-sitters or their friends. This manner of selling worked for many years, during which there was not the need nor even the time to exhibit, which is why so few people have ever heard of me.
That is the simple answer to the most often asked question I hear: "But this work is so beautiful, how come we�ve never heard of you?" I do believe that Art is to be shared however, and so I began feeling more and more that I would like to exhibit, and have my work seen by others than the very rich - as well as to far more very rich, who I hope will be my collectors and patrons. An Artist only asks for one thing: enough money to be free to create his work in peace. In order to do that without having to bash people over the head, or send them to sleep with a million words, and so that I can show my work to a larger range of people, I have started to arrange exhibitions, the first of which is at the Westwood Gallery in New York, who are my U.S. representatives. (see the beginning of this website for their address etc.)
Although I gave up professional portraiture, I still love to paint people, but now I pay them to sit for me, or I paint friends whose faces enthral or simply please me. Like every Artist before me, especially Rembrandt, I sometimes paint myself. As I�m sure was the case with Rembrandt, I do not do this for any reasons of vanity, on the contrary, my face does not particularly please me at all, and, since I work with faces all the time, I very often see one that I can�t help wishing was my own. However, there are several reasons for which one paints oneself. The first is that one is always available when another model might not be. Another reason is that one is less likely to lose patience with oneself than perhaps another sitter might; after a certain time most people start fidgeting and want to stop sitting. Nothing is worse than trying to paint someone you know is loathing to model. And yet another reason is that if you make a mess of the portrait, or make yourself uglier or older than you actually are, you don�t really care, you can always do another one. But if you have a sitter, the chances are that they will be most upset if you inadvertently - and an Artist is only human - make them look awful. I�m sure there are all sorts of deeper psychological reasons, but those are at least a few that might interest you, and help you to understand why an Artist paints portraits of himself. And no, I work like the Old Masters, from life, I would never do a portrait from a photograph. Apart from anything else - like the sacred rule of my Master, Leonardo, which was "Work only after the Nature!" - I have enough respect for photography to think that if you have a good photo of someone, leave it as a photo. A painted portrait is far more than a hand painted copy of the person�s face, it is a truly magical interpretation of the sitter by the Artist; of the sitter�s atmosphere or vibration over a period of hours, or even weeks, as opposed to a photographic split second. It is far more than his features simply being recorded. And although I am fully aware that the camera is capable of more than just recording, still I don�t believe it is capable of producing anything quite as magical as a painted or drawn portrait, especially one by a good Artist. Portraiture is a most wonderful genre, and I consider myself lucky to be able to paint people; after all, people are pretty important in the scheme of things, it seems to me...especially the ones we love.
