Dear History Reclaimed,
I am a fan of Professor Tombs’s lively, pungent and frequently astute writing and am a loyal contributor to HR both through articles and lecturing. But I must take exception to his throwaway comment about the two ‘brown daubs’ that have replaced the Elizabeth I portrait in Downing Street at the behest of the Prime Minister.
Not only is it good for any collection to have its works rotated and rested, but portraits that stare at you, not least when they are found politically uncongenial, (Margaret far more than Bess), can and should make way for other works.
The Anglo-Portuguese Paula Rego ranks with Lucian Freud and the younger Peter Doig as among Britain’s greatest recent painters. The two works concerned are not daubs (implying messy paintwork), nor are they predominantly brown, but represent the artist’s response to
the Venetian Master Carlo Crivelli in the National Gallery, with an updated cast of figures.
If you doubt Rego’s greatness, visit Durham Cathedral, see her magnificent Margaret and David, and wash your mouth out with turpentine!
Yours sincerely,
Mark Stocker
Readers may judge for themselves from this photograph taken when President Zelensky came to tea recently:
Simon Dawson/No. 10 Downing Street
For the record, Robert’s off the cuff reply to Mark was: ‘I have to admit that my artistic taste has not gone much beyond the 1850s’.
