Art collector buys £8,000 painting – and X-ray shows a £50,000 picture underneath

By Mail online Reporter
Updated: 13:10 EDT, 21 June 2010

A collector who bought a portrait by a celebrated British artist has uncovered a £50,000 masterpiece – after an X-ray revealed another picture hidden underneath.

The art lover bought the original piece – a self-portrait by Robert Lenkiewicz depicting the artist in a nude pose with a female model – at auction for £8,500.

But after advice from an expert the unnamed owner took the oil painting to Torbay Hospital in Torquay, Devon to have it X-rayed. He was stunned to see that underneath the naked couple was the portrait of a tramp – worth an estimated £50,000.

The owner of the double portrait, who bought it in a collective auction of Lenkiewicz’s work in 2003, believes the artist must have painted over it for some reason.

He said: ‘When the experts looked at it they reckoned it contained another picture underneath.

‘So I took it to Torbay Hospital and discovered the tramp, which could be worth more than what is painted over it.

‘The picture I bought at auction could soon be valued at more than £50,000. It is a private work and perhaps should never have gone under the hammer at the estate’s sale in 2003.’ 

Lenkiewicz, of Plymouth, Devon, died of a heart attack aged 60 in 2002 and left behind no cash but a collection of art worth an estimated £2million.

He was famous for his works with the homeless and after he died the embalmed body of a 72-year-old tramp was found stuffed in a drawer in his studio.

The tramp – Edwin McKenzie, known as Diogenes – was a close friend of the artist and his whereabouts since his death in the 1980s had been a mystery. It was believed the dying wish of Mr McKenzie, who had no known family, was that his friend should embalm his body as a ‘work of art’.

The pair first met when the tramp was living in a concrete barrel at a rubbish tip near his studio and the artist embalmed him in 1984.

Officials at Plymouth City Council later tried to seize the corpse but couldn’t find the it until it was discovered hidden following Lenkiewicz’s death.

It is technically possible to remove the top painting to reveal the tramp materpiece underneath, but the price tag would not be justified on a £50,000 painting.

Art dealer Adrian Phippen, a Lenkiewicz expert, said the double portrait was ‘a very important piece of work’ by the artist.

‘Works like this one will become more valuable and highly prized by collectors than the self portraits with women that he painted.

‘To remove the top painting would be expensive but whoever buys it will have a unique piece by a leading British artist.’

A spokesman for South Devon Healthcare Trust added: ‘On rare occasions the hospital’s radiology team will be asked to X-ray an object.

‘We will always try to aid people. In this particular case the trust was happy to help and staff gave up their own time outside clinical hours to carry out the unusual request. They will be pleased to know that they have been part of such a remarkable finding.

‘We would like to offer our congratulations to the owner of the painting, who must be delighted with the discovery. Where the trust had been able to assist, a donation to the trust fund is usually made.’ 

The owner of the portrait, who lives in London and Ashburton in Devon, now plans to sell it at the Driftwood Gallery in Padstow, Cornwall.

He said: ‘I think the image there now is very good and rare. And it would be expensive to restore it to get to the tramp.’ 

The popularity of Lenkiewicz’s work has increased since his death and the current world record for one of his pictures stands at £57,600 for a self-portrait in 2005.

His work was virtually ignored by the art establishment during his lifetime, but now experts are comparing his colourful bohemian style with Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud.

Many of his paintings depict characters from around his home including skinheads, punks, criminals, fishermen, and the many women in his life.

Lenkiewicz learnt to paint with brushes made from his own hair and was married and divorced three times, leaving 11 children by various women.

The REAL eau de toilet! Artist makes perfume from the ‘excesses of his body’

By Daily Mail Reporter
Updated: 12:43 EDT, 17 February 2011

In today’s celebrity age it seems almost everyone has their own perfume – pop stars, models, footballers – so Jammie Nicholas decided to follow suit.

The 23-year-old art student, who says he has a ‘really bad’ sense of smell, has literally bottled his own scent by making a perfume from his excreta and urine.

Surplus, his product, is on sale at a London gallery at £40 per bottle and has already sold around 20 bottles.

The fragrance ‘made from the excesses of the body’ has earned mixed reactions from potential customers with some ‘disgusted’ and others ‘pleasantly surprised’.

Mr Nicholas, from Bow, East London, said: ‘People really like the smell first of all, they say it’s interesting and slightly strong.

‘When we tell them what it’s made from they’re taken aback – some are pleasantly surprised but others are disgusted, drop the smell card and walk off.

‘The idea came after reading a book,  ‘History of ****’ by Dominique Laporte, which talked about people using perfumes to cover up bad smells.

‘I thought it must be possible to use bad smells to actually create a perfume.’

Surplus forms part of an exhibition from three graduates from Central St Martin’s fine art degree course.

Some 99 per cent of the scent is made from Jammie’s own faeces, urine and sebum – the oils found in hair and skin.

Mr Nicholas learned how to distil the ingredients using a home-made steam extractor and then refined the scent from something ‘pungent’ and ‘incredibly strong’ into a more sweet-smelling perfume.

‘When I first distilled it, it smelled like you would imagine,’ he said.

‘But it was more intense than anything else you might think.

‘It’s quite serendipitous the fact I’ve got a really bad sense of smell.’

The exhibition, at the Jealous Gallery in North London, also features work by duo StrangMacfarlane and painters Freya Don and Alanna Eakin, runs until February 27.

Nicholas’s other creations also display a fascination with toilet-related ideas and more intimate parts of the body.

Previous works listed on his website include The Sun Is But One Anus, Taking The P*** and Curiosity Castrated The Cat.

That’s one way of getting your artworks into an exhibition… Pictures left on public transport are given their own show

By Lauren Paxman
Updated: 12:31 EDT, 17 May 2011

Struggling artists take note, rather than trudging around galleries trying to generate interest in your work, the quickest way to get exhibited might just be to leave a painting on the Tube.

A London gallery is featuring 60 artworks, most of them unnamed, that were left on public transport in an exhibition, aptly called Lost Collection, that opens next month.

They include works from an entire end-of-year project that Wimbledon College of Art student Regis Gautier-Cochfert lost at Earl’s Court and never reclaimed.

He has since been in touch with the organisers and is excited to be reunited with his work which was a moving photography project that dealt with the death of his father.

Losing his portfolio clearly didn’t hinder Regis’ progress, he is now Head of Art at the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

Other pictures in the exhibition range from still lifes to moody black and white portraits, all found on the capital’s Tubes, buses, trains and black cabs.

It is hoped, but not expected, that some of the pieces might be revealed as hidden great works.

Danielle Pender, one of the show’s curators said: ‘Who were these creators? What were they trying to communicate and, most importantly, do they have any talent?’

Almost 200,000 items were found on London’s public transport network last year.

Books are the most commonly deserted items, with more than 38,000 found last year, but more unusual finds include a coffin, a jar of bull’s sperm and a park bench.

Staff at the Lost Property Office in Baker Street office carry out Sherlock Holmes-style investigations of their finds, and one in three are usually reunited with their owners.

Julie Haley, TfL’s Lost Property Office Manager, said: ‘Reuniting two urns of ashes with the families who had lost them was particularly heart-warming – it was very emotional for all of us.

‘Having said that, all items are important to their owners and returning even the smallest of items can make a big difference.’

The curators of KK Outlet’s Lost Collection, which runs from June 3 to 30 in Hoxton, East London, hope that they will be able to offer a similar service for the artists behind their exhibits.

Perfection, down to a tea: The Royal Family’s private Fabergé collection goes on display in Buckingham Palace

By Daily Mail Reporter
Updated: 09:22 EDT, 14 July 2011

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It’s a tea set fit for a queen – although it’s unlikely to help quench her thirst.

This stunning collection of intricate works of art by Russian jeweller and goldsmith Peter Carl Fabergé is what the Royal family has amassed over more than a century.

The works were unveiled – some of them publicly for the first time – as part of an exhibition at Buckingham Palace’s summer opening.

The Royal Fabergé collection includes more than 100 items from the celebrated artist who was first collected by Queen Victoria in the late 19th century.

Sine then, six generations of Royals including Her Majesty The Queen and Prince Charles have been fascinated by the priceless baubles.

Among the collection is an Imperial Easter egg with an ornate basket of flowers that was commissioned by Tsar Nicholas II for Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna in 1901.

The famous Mosaic Imperial Easter Egg is made from tiny cut emeralds, rubies and diamonds with  portraits of the five children of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra.

The Egg was a gift from the Tsar to his wife in 1914 and was confiscated during the Russian Revolution before being purchased by King George V in 1933, probably for Queen Mary’s birthday.

Also going on display are a miniature gold tea set that originally belonged to Queen Alexandra and the only known Fabergé figure of a Chelsea Pensioner, acquired by King Edward VII in 1909.

The summer opening also includes a display of the Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding dress.

One of the most striking items is a red and white enamelled notebook that Queen Victoria used for autographs for foreign rulers who attended her diamond jubilee.

Among the exhibition highlights is a crystal inkwell presented to The Queen (then Princess Elizabeth) and The Duke of Edinburgh on the occasion of their wedding in November 1947.  

Fabergé produced a diverse range of works, often turning the most routine object into a miniature work of art.  The vast majority of his designs were never repeated and most pieces were made entirely by hand.

The success of Fabergé’s business was inextricably linked to the patronage of the Romanov Dynasty and the close ties between the British, Danish and Russian royal families.

The Danish Princess Alexandra married the future King Edward VII in 1863, and her sister Dagmar became Tsarina Maria Feodorovna after her marriage to Tsar Alexander III in 1866. 

There was a constant exchange of gifts for birthdays, anniversaries, and to commemorate occasions when the families met – many of the objects on display are therefore intimately connected to the royal families.

Royal Fabergé is part of a visit to the Summer Opening of the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace, 23 July – 3 October 2011. 

Grab your whisky, not Wellington boots, for Pure: A unique music festival in London

By Oliver Pickup
Updated: 11:05 EDT, 20 September 2011

If you were worried that you would have to wait until summer 2012 – through the long, cold winter and spring – for your next festival hit, fear no more.

For this weekend there is a unique event in East London that is sure to warm your cockles – and you can leave your Wellies at home, too.

Because the first Pure Festival, held at The Garage in Highbury Corner on Saturday and Sunday, will see scores of top bands and musicians fuse with whisky tasting – a heady combination, I’m sure you will agree.

Headline acts include the Danish pop-noir duo The Raveonettes, James Yorkston, Steve Mason, Smoke Fairies, Kassidy and Electric Soft Parade.

And they are joined by Martin Rossiter, Hatcham Social, Sissy and the Blisters and more.

Meanwhile, included in the £28.50 ticket price is the chance to sample and learn about single malt whisky, blended whisky and Bourbon. 

Whiskies on offer include esteemed Scottish single malts such as Ardbeg, Talisker and AnCnoc, Irish whiskey from independent distillery Cooley and premium blends such as Whyte and Mackay and Dewar’s. 

Meanwhile respected whisky writer Dominic Roskrow will present The World Whisky Masters Medal Winners, and there will be plenty of award-winning whisky for all to sample.

Roskrow is an authority on whisky, author of the World’s Best Whiskies and recipient of the scotch whisky industries highest honour; Keeper Of The Quaich. 

He will be bringing a number of medal winners from the recent World Whisky Masters, a rare opportunity to sample some of the finest blends from around the globe.

Whisky sampling will take place with distillers leading Pure festival goers through their individual whiskies between 4pm and 7pm. 

Revellers will be able to move at their leisure from one distiller’s stand to another, sampling whichever whiskies they wish to taste as part of their ticket price and enjoying the music.

A spokesman for the festival said: ‘Pure aims to educate people on whisky in a fun and informative way and the festival is a unique opportunity to sample a number of fantastic whiskies in a relaxed, informal setting. 

‘Brown spirits are enjoying a huge renaissance in the UK from both male and females and there is a real demand to know more about the origins and the marked differences in different brands.‘

Go to www.purefestival.com for more information and to buy tickets – doors open at 4pm, while whisky tasting is from 4-7pm

Paramedic who boasted on Facebook that he ‘saved someone’s life and managed to cop a feel of some cracking jubblies’ is found guilty of misconduct

• Mark Small posted comment at the end of night shift and deleted it next morning after flatmate complained
• Manager told inquiry paramedic said there was ‘flirtatious atmosphere’ at the scene
• Paramedic refused to accept his comment was misconduct
• Panel has adjourned to consider sanctions against Mr Small

By Daily Mail Reporter

Published: 07:28 EDT, 27 April 2012 | Updated: 15:51 EDT, 27 April 2012

A paramedic who boasted on Facebook that he groped a patient’s breasts was found guilty of misconduct yesterday.

Following an emergency call-out to a young woman, Mark Small posted: ‘Saved someone’s life and managed to cop a feel of some cracking jubblies.’

He then described his shift as ‘excellent’.

The remarks were left after Small finished a night shift for the Great Western Ambulance Service.

They were removed from the site the following morning after his housemate told him they were inappropriate.

But someone saw them and complained to the service.

Small was immediately suspended from his job following the incident, but returned to his duties after an investigation found he had not touched the patient inappropriately.

However, a Health Professions Council panel yesterday ruled that the inappropriate message amounted to misconduct and that as a result Small’s fitness to practise is impaired.

Small admitted posting the comments on June 28 last year and said in doing so his behaviour had fallen below the standards expected of a paramedic.

But he insisted there had been no inappropriate touching of a patient and the comments related to another woman who had been at the house of the call out.

Shannett Thompson, for the HPC, said the council’s case was that the posting implied Small had ‘touched part of a woman’s anatomy he absolutely should not have’.

‘The term jubblies I’m led to believe relates to a woman’s breast area,’ she added.

She told the panel Small had told his manager there had been a number of women present at the incident who were ‘flirty’ and possibly drunk. He added: ‘There was no inappropriate action. I did like the look of this one female who was on scene.

‘I imagined this comment relating to her.’

He said he ‘honestly didn’t know’ why he had posted the remarks.

The paramedic, from Bristol, told the hearing he had had an unblemished eight-year career with the ambulance service in Gloucestershire. He also said privacy settings on his Facebook page meant the comments he posted could only have been accessed by 150 ‘friends’.

The panel, however, found Small acted in an ‘irresponsible, immature and highly unprofessional’ manner.

Chairman Christine Mills said his words were demeaning and degrading to women as they showed a ‘lack of respect for female patients’. She told him that by making the comment he had fallen below the standards expected of a paramedic and should have known what the consequences of his actions would be.

‘You must behave with integrity and not damage the public’s confidence in your profession,’ she said.

Miss Mills said that had a member of the public seen his Facebook post they would have reacted in the same manner as the anonymous complainant, who had inferred that Small had behaved inappropriately towards a patient.

The panel could have struck off the paramedic but decided to give him an official caution which will remain on his file for three years.

Following the decision, Small assured the hearing there was no risk of a repeat of his misdemeanour.

He said: ‘I certainly have no intention of finding myself in this type of situation again.’

Emi is simply the best in Tina Turner tribute show Soul Sister

By Robert Gore-langton

Published: 13:05 EDT, 3 September 2012 | Updated: 13:05 EDT, 3 September 2012

Soul Sister (Savoy Theatre, London)                                    

Rating:

Tina Turner tribute show Soul Sister is both made and saved by Emi Wokoma’s sensational impersonation of the glamorous diva. With her electrified lion’s-mane hairdo, skirt hem around her  navel and thighs of teak, she is unforgettable.

The voice is spot-on, although the face looks nothing like the same. But this is a performance infused with Ms Wokoma’s own powerful, raw, gap-toothed personality, and that makes all the difference.

Tina Turner was a teenage gospel singer, real name Anna Mae Bullock, with Baptist roots in  Nutbush, Tennessee.

She was discovered, groomed and promoted by her mentor Ike Turner, who married her and thought he owned her.

This show tells how she eventually got out of the abusive marriage and crawled her way back up the bill from total career collapse to solo superstardom.

The problem is never the songs – they are great. It’s the script. Even by the decidedly unShakespearean standards of the compilation show genre, the dialogue here is lifeless, and Peter Brooks and Bob Eaton’s storytelling clunks like a wooden leg.

A lot of the domestic marital stuff is dragged out at length.  Ike is mean, chippy, short-fused and a terrible cocaine addict. Every time he snorts more of the devil’s dandruff you know he is going to thump her.

Never mind, by the Seventies feminism is in the air and battered Tina is chanting Buddhist mantras in a dressing gown in their Los Angeles mansion while Ike prowls around angrily. When at last Tina smacks him one in the mouth, how we all cheer!

Ike is very well played by Chris Tummings – a fine guitarist to boot – with a huge shiny lacquer wig which turns into an afro as the production progresses. Weirdly, however, the show doesn’t feature Tina’s last hit with him, Nutbush City Limits.

The cartoon-style design projections are classy and panels slide sleekly about the stage. But we also get the usual lazily chosen footage of Martin Luther King, Nixon, Moon landings etc to represent the social revolution of  the Sixties.

The early songs are terrific,  if less well known, Tina and  the Ikettes shimmying about in  joyous union. The onstage band really gets cooking in the second half and the big hits – What’s Love Got To Do With It and Simply The Best – are belters.

It’s Tina we want and Tina we get, thanks to Emi Wokoma, who, in a series of costume changes, gives us a sparkling, big-lunged brand of glitz and high-octane raunchiness. She’s simply the best even if the show isn’t.

In Dickens’ Women a short, round actress walks on stage and recites from one of the maestro’s novels. Then she announces: ‘That was Sarah Gamp from Martin Chuzzlewit, and I am Miriam Margolyes from Clapham. I have had a passion for Dickens all my life.’

What follows showcases two dozen or so women from Dickens’s work and Margolyes’s extraordinary gifts as a comic actress.

She has been touring this show for more than 20 years and she’s still on the road. Her twinkling personality perfectly dovetails with Dickens’s vivid creations.

She might be in thrall to the great man’s genius, but she’s certainly not blind to his faults. His poor wife Catherine, who bore him ten children, is a pitiful figure. As for the insipid young heroines in many of the novels, Margolyes is surely not alone in saying: ‘I find them rather icky.’

She reminds us of the childhood job Dickens endured in the blacking factory while his father was incarcerated in prison for debt – a shame that he never got over. But then, as Margolyes points out, ‘he never got over anything’. She also fills in some of the less familiar biography so Dickens doesn’t come over as too much of the jolly paterfamilias he’s been painted as.

We meet Dickens’s only lesbian character, Miss Wade from Little Dorrit; there is an icy encounter between Miss Havisham and Pip from Great Expectations; and Margolyes brilliantly recreates the bit from Oliver Twist in which Mr Bumble flirts with Mrs Corney by the fire: ‘Sexual greed to economic greed in one scene!’

This show, co-written with its director Sonia Fraser and accompanied by pianist Benjamin Lee, has come into its own in Dickens’s 200th anniversary year.

Margolyes is totally  in command of her material and this loving, literary tribute sparkles and never plods.

Georgina Brown is away.

Office romance lifts us out of a slump

By Robert Gore-langton

Published: 13:08 EDT, 3 September 2012 | Updated: 13:08 EDT, 3 September 2012

Cornelius (Finborough Theatre, London)

Rating:

A bright, forgotten gem by  J. B. Priestley unseen since 1935, Cornelius is set in the London office of aluminium importers Briggs & Murrison.

Ebullient Jim Cornelius (Alan Cox), his unlit pipe in his pocket, is trying to keep staff happy and creditors at bay. He hopes his partner Murrison will return from his travels with a full order book, but we glean from the off it’s unlikely to happen.

The employees arrive at the dowdy Thirties office with polite formalities. A stream of hawkers turn up as the hours tick by. Cornelius disdains their wares but is generous with his shillings, while staving off the demands of the bank.

The play is shot through with Priestley’s socialism but director Sam Yates doesn’t over-egg parallels with today’s slump: everyone stuck in jobs they dare not leave, waiting for the axe to fall.

Rather, its focus is the personnel, together a sort of family soldiering on: a cashier (Col Farrell), doing the books in quiet absorption; Miss Porrin (Annabel Topham), a sad spinster; Lawrence (David Ellis), the office boy dreaming of a career in the ‘wireless’.

Cox is a joy as the boss, an eccentric, impulsive man much taken with a book he is reading on the Incas. When  a pretty secretary (Emily Barber) arrives in place of her sister, he begins to do all sorts of strange things, such as sniffing her lost glove. Cox plays him as a Reggie Perrin fantasist, blending pathos and then potential tragedy as Murrison (Jamie Newall) returns with a glint in his eye, a gun in his coat and bad news for the firm.

Out in the street you can hear the world changing (thanks to composer Alex Baranowski). What will become of these characters, or indeed us, we ask,  in this beautifully staged and fascinating  production.

Legend ticks all the boxes

By David Mellor

Published: 13:23 EDT, 3 September 2012 | Updated: 13:23 EDT, 3 September 2012

Rating:

Such is the recording companies’ desperation for turnover, there’s a glut of new bargain CD boxes. Lovers of British music can  now get the complete recorded legacy, on 23 CDs, of Sir Clifford Curzon, the greatest English pianist of  the 20th Century, for less than £50 on Decca. Or, on 11 CDs from EMI, some splendid German music from Bach to  Wagner by one of the greatest English conductors of the 20th Century, Sir Adrian Boult, for barely £20.

Then there are all the major works of Sir William Walton on 12 CDs, also from EMI, in generally excellent recordings for less than £25.

In later life, Clifford Curzon specialised in what his teacher, Artur Schnabel, called ‘music better than it can ever be played’. His Schubert was good enough to make him a legend in Vienna, and his Mozart piano concerto performances were esteemed for their clarity and refinement. Several versions of key ones, like the last, K595, are to be found on the Decca set.

Curzon refused to record anything he didn’t think he had completely mastered, and then often wouldn’t agree to release the few recordings he did make. So two beautiful performances of K595, with Sir Georg Solti and the Vienna Philharmonic and Benjamin Britten and the English Chamber Orchestra, could not be issued until after Curzon’s death.

A highly-strung perfectionist, Curzon was described by one friend as spending days working on 19 different ways of playing a single phrase, before settling  on a 20th as a temporary expedient.  Happily, Decca revered him, and put in the huge effort required to coax recordings out of him. So this treasurable set is as much a tribute to them as to him.

There’s also some fine Schumann, Beethoven and Liszt. And plenty of  big, showy concertos, including three magnificent performances of Brahms’s massive First Concerto. The last of these, from 1962, with another perfectionist, George Szell, is arguably the finest recording this work has ever received.

There’s also a Grieg concerto from 1958 possessed of a freshness and poetry that banishes thoughts of all others. And  a gossamer-like Litolff Scherzo that sounds as if it has just escaped from Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Decca have also gathered together  some radio recordings, including a memorable account from the 1952 Edinburgh Festival, of Brahms’s Liebeslieder Waltzes with a vocal quartet including Kathleen Ferrier, sounding wonderful only a few months before she died. There’s also a disc of radio interviews, and a DVD of two BBC TV recitals.

Curzon was a connoisseur’s pianist, and this box is a true connoisseur’s choice.

Sir Adrian Boult was such a dedicated servant of British music that he became typecast in the role. But in fact he trained in Germany and, had the First World War not intervened, would have stayed on working in German opera houses.

He continued recording into great old age, and it’s extraordinary to hear a conductor born in 1889 in 1970s recordings that still sound really well.

They came about by accident. He was left with a three-hour session, having finished, with typical efficiency, a recording of British music in less than the allotted time. EMI asked him what he wanted to do in it, and he replied, Brahms’s Third.

This 1970 recording with the London Symphony Orchestra was such a success that a full cycle was commissioned, and  he was also let loose on lots of Wagner, a  very special Schubert 9 and a delightful Beethoven Pastoral, as well as some Bach Brandenburgs that perhaps now sound old-fashioned.

EMI’s companion set is devoted to  William Walton. All the main stuff is here, with Bernard Haitink most persuasive  in the epic First Symphony, one of the 20th Century’s greatest symphonies, and Andre Previn making the most of the much more problematic Second.
Sir Simon Rattle contributes a powerful Belshazzar’s Feast, Ida Haendel is first class in the Violin Concerto, and the young Nigel Kennedy wields a nifty viola for  a change in the Viola Concerto.
With Facade in its original and full orchestral version, the complete Troilus And Cressida, lashings of film music, all the concert overtures, and both Coronation marches, this is a formidable collection.