My friend the spy & why we’re all pretty silly about about art
In the exquisite surrounds of his Wimbledon drawing room, acclaimed art critic Brian Sewell is telling me the remarkable tale of how he duped the Tate gallery.
‘I hope you like coffee,’ he prefaces the story. ‘My tea is terrible.’
He pours us both a cup from a cafetiere [accent on second e], offers a chocolate biscuit and begins. ‘Ages ago, perhaps as far back as the late 1960s, I found a funny picture in Christie’s. It was in a pretty dire state – but I recognised it as an early Hogarth.
‘I got it for nothing, took it home and repainted it, making it look much better than it was. I then sent it back to Christie’s and the Tate bought it.
‘For a few years, it was the earliest Hogarth in the Tate… until some Hogarth scholars came along and it was demoted [the original has since been attributed to a rather more obscure artist]. I haven’t seen it for years, but I was jolly chuffed when they bought it.’
The story is typical Sewell: surprising, bold, and more than a little mischievous. If accurate, it is also proof that he is an art critic who really can handle a brush.
Sewell was born in 1931. His father, Peter Warlock, was a minor composer and ‘waspish maker of enemies’, who instructed Sewell’s mother to have an abortion when she became pregnant during their brief affair. She refused – and Warlock killed himself before Sewell was born.
Brought up poor by his mother (a background belied by his exquisitely tuned, upstairs accent), he went on to study at the Courtauld Institute of Art. He started work at the auctioneer Christie’s, before earning his place as Britain’s foremost – and most formidable – art critic.
Read the full interview in Friday’s edition of The Lady magazine
‘I hope you like coffee,’ he prefaces the story. ‘My tea is terrible.’
He pours us both a cup from a cafetiere [accent on second e], offers a chocolate biscuit and begins. ‘Ages ago, perhaps as far back as the late 1960s, I found a funny picture in Christie’s. It was in a pretty dire state – but I recognised it as an early Hogarth.
‘I got it for nothing, took it home and repainted it, making it look much better than it was. I then sent it back to Christie’s and the Tate bought it.
‘For a few years, it was the earliest Hogarth in the Tate… until some Hogarth scholars came along and it was demoted [the original has since been attributed to a rather more obscure artist]. I haven’t seen it for years, but I was jolly chuffed when they bought it.’
The story is typical Sewell: surprising, bold, and more than a little mischievous. If accurate, it is also proof that he is an art critic who really can handle a brush.
Sewell was born in 1931. His father, Peter Warlock, was a minor composer and ‘waspish maker of enemies’, who instructed Sewell’s mother to have an abortion when she became pregnant during their brief affair. She refused – and Warlock killed himself before Sewell was born.
Brought up poor by his mother (a background belied by his exquisitely tuned, upstairs accent), he went on to study at the Courtauld Institute of Art. He started work at the auctioneer Christie’s, before earning his place as Britain’s foremost – and most formidable – art critic.
Read the full interview in Friday’s edition of The Lady magazine