I know, I know, I still have several other unfinished paintings on the easel, but I felt like doing this. “Girl On Bike in Brielle”. Typical Dutch, I would say. It’ll keep me off the street for a week or so.

Day 2. Some more canvas covered with paint.

Day 3 and 4: most of the canvas is covered with paint. Now I can start working on the details, which might take a while.

Day 5, 6 and 7: As far as I’m concerned this painting is finished, unless I see some details that need to be improved.

Adrian Henri - The City (1957) Click to enlarge

Adrian Maurice Henri (10 April 1932 – 20 December 2000, following a long illness) was a British poet and painter best remembered as the founder of poetry-rock group The Liverpool Scene and as one of three poets in the best-selling anthology The Mersey Sound, along with Brian Patten and Roger McGough. Adrian Henri’s grandfather was a seaman from Mauritius who settled in Birkenhead, Cheshire, where Henri was born. In 1938, at the age of 6, Henri moved to Rhyl. Adrian Henri studied art at King’s College in Newcastle, from 1951 to 1954. He graduated from Durham University in 1955, and became an art teacher. For a short time he taught art at Preston Catholic College before going on to lecture art at both Manchester and Liverpool Colleges of Art. He arrived in Liverpool in 1957 and settled in Liverpool 8. In 1972 he won a major prize (plus £2000) for his painting in the John Moores competition. He was president of the Merseyside Arts Association and Liverpool Academy of the Arts in the 1970s and was an honorary professor of the city’s John Moores University. He has exhibited his art work across the country. Adrian Henri married twice, but had no children. He could name among his personal friends John Lennon, George Melly, Allen Ginsberg, Willy Russell, John Willett, and Paul McCartney.

Adrian Henri lived in the lower ground floor apartment of 24, Falkner Square, Liverpool 8. In 1957, the year he arrived in Liverpool to teach art, he painted “The City” (see above). Oil on hardboard, 122 x 90 cm. 

Original labels attached to the back of the painting

 The same year, 1957, he entered the painting in the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition, under nr. 1893. After the exhibition Adrian put a price on the painting: 50 guineas.

The rest is guesswork. Probably he gave the painting as a wedding present to his friends George W. (Gerald) Wilkinson and Patricia Ann (Pat) Marley (1939-2010) in 1959, because they knew each other very well and they had the painting in their possession for many years. Recently the painting moved into our house, because Pat died in December 2010 and Pat’s only sister is my partner Jean Henderson, née Marley, who was previously married to Arthur Dooley, Norman Atkinson and Carl Henderson.

I love this painting. When I saw it for the first time, in 2007, it was hanging in Pat’s living room in Hunters Lane, Liverpool. It reminded me so much of Belfast in the early 1970s, and I associate the scene with the nightly roadblocks in that city. The painting is much like the city itself — it comes to live at night. Actually it’s not Belfast but Liverpool, the city Adrian Henri loved so much. Unlike Roger McGough and Brian Patten, Henri chose to remain in Liverpool, turning his back on the trendier London scene and saying there was nowhere he loved better.

Central St. Leonards -- Acrylic on canvas

This is a little thing I did for fun, to enable us to find our way in our new habitat, St. Leonards-on-Sea.

Self-portrait on city wall, 6m x 5,46m

Self-portrait, computer art in the city, acrylic on existing wall, 6m x 5,46m. Commission like this: €80,000.

“Django Reinhardt”, acrylic on canvas, 45 x 40 cm. Present to David McGovern, for his wedding to Ruth Atkinson, Liverpool, 28 February 2009.

Nasser and Family, acrylic on canvas, 81 x 54 cm, commission.

Naomi’s Ass II, acrylic on canvas, 54 x 45 cm, € 2,500,-.

Sergio, acrylic on canvas, 27 x 35 cm. € 1,000,-. For free if Sergio or his mum wants it.

Asian Delight, acrylic on canvas, 54 x 45 cm. Commission: € 3,000,-.

Business partners, acrylic on canvas, 81×54 cm. Sold. Commission like this: € 5,000,-.