A gallery in a gallery

We went to see the John Craxton exhibition at Pallant House.  He isn’t a painter I knew, other than the odd book jacket,  but he was a close friend of Lucien Freud’s with whom he appeared to have shared and painted in a squalid flat in the 1940s.  His whole life started when he moved to Greece and embraced his gayness, the warmth and started painting local people and local life.  Quite stylised and colourful.  I actually rather liked his more gloomy English paintings but V was very taken with his work.  

We also went to look at Pallant house’s new miniature gallery.  They also have other earlier ones but this is with contemporary artists.  I stupidly didn’t take a close up of the guide but I remember the lambs top left are Julian Opie, oh well, we’ll be back.  Of course if you take a close up shot it just looks as if you’re in an ordinary gallery. 

The day was cold and very sunny and sadly the clutch in Vik’s car has packed up so we had to drive mine over.   We had lunch booked at the pub,  the Earl of March in Lavant which has just reopened.  It was a disappointment, not good food and one very poor non alcoholic beer which upset this Dry January drinker…I should have brought my own Kombucha.  

A far cry from John Craxton’s paintings of lunches in Greek taverns.