Commentary from Emma Russell

We first met John when we selected his painting and printmaking for an exhibition at Hammerson’s former Park Lane headquarters. I would like to call the work from this time ‘urban portraits’. Producing paintings and prints in series, John was concerned with revealing the layered atmosphere of London, not just the architecture and contemporary hustle of urban life with its speed and density of crowds and traffic, but also to give a feeling of the history of streets and monuments that would be equally familiar to people of an earlier time.

The urban atmosphere was intensified by the busy marks - whether etched onto the plate or the thickly applied energy of impasto on canvas - as well as from the calm, sparer marks and quieter palette that, in contrast, he sometimes chose for his subjects, whether landmarks such as Fleet Street, St Paul’s, or an anonymous yet all too familiar street corner or underground station. These images were immensely appealing to City collectors and we were delighted several works of John’s were chosen for the walls of law firms, an engineering company and finance boutiques.

A visit to John’s south London studio, complete with drying onions from his allotment which he also painted, was always a pleasure. Through his canvases and prints, I felt I saw the London which John saw and worked in, and appreciated it through his eyes.

Emma Russell, Dickson Russell Art Management

November 2009