30 1/2 x 22 1/8 ins
When Cath and I moved to Tickhill, we met a carpenter called William Green – a remarkable character. He was a highly nervous man who really wanted to be a painter. Various things in his life had stopped this so that just the very idea that I tried to draw and paint drew us together. William would come home latish in the day, wash, have his tea, and sit down for a few minutes. And then, until daylight went, he would work like a maniac in his garden or shed.
William was the only one who sometimes came into our cottage and saw what it was like. But there were a lot of people, for instance, who thought I was away from the Plant because it was more amusing to be away. One day William gave me some roses and I began to paint Somnambulist and Anvil. They didn’t take twenty-three years. You have the things by you and you pick them up and pick them up. Everybody else goes mad. And there you are still working on the same watercolour.
Walk to the Moon - the Story of Albert Houthuesen, The Putney Press 2008
Provenance
Goldsmith's College, LondonPrivate Collection