The Steeple Times

Tag: Royal Academy

  • Tracey Emin: “Narcissistic, Deranged, Screaming Banshee”

    Tracey Emin: “Narcissistic, Deranged, Screaming Banshee”

    Serial party goer Tracey Emin CBE, RA bizarrely claims she doesn’t like parties but gets it spot on when she states she is treated as a “narcissistic, deranged, screaming banshee”

    On Saturday, Tracey Emin told The Guardian’s Miranda Bryant: “You cannot be an artist hanging out a giant party, it’s never going to work” in spite of the fact she’s been constantly pictured at parties for decades.

     

    In July 2012, of the attention seeking artist’s very own parties, Tatler’s ‘Bystander’ gushed: “When Tracey Emin throw’s a party, it’s always brilliant. Always amazing. Hip hip hooray” and added: “Tracey Emin: great party host.” Strangely, that pearl of wisdom didn’t get a mention in The Guardian.

     

    Known for hanging out at ritzy joints like Annabel’s and the GQ Awards with everyone from Prince and Princess Michael of Kent to Sir Elton John and his titleless husband David Furnish, super-connected, moaning multi-millionairess Emin used Saturday’s interview to bleat about how her life as an artist is “really lonely.”

     

    Going further, this 58-year-old Turner Prize nominee bizarrely bleated of one of her works exhibited at the rather prestigious Royal Academy in 2020:

     

    “I think I’ve been overlooked. I think they just thought I was some sort of narcissistic, deranged, screaming banshee.”

     

    Self-absorbed Emin seems to forget she leads a life that is slightly more privileged than most of her struggling contemporaries. Aside from having taken up a CBE in spite of threatening to quit Britain for France over tax and her appointment as Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy, this motormouthed harpy has benefitted from an education at the Medway College of Design, Maidstone College, Royal College of Art and Birkbeck University. Not many artists get that lucky.

     

    In addition, exhibited at the likes of the Saatchi Gallery, National Gallery of Scotland, Tate Britain and La Biennale di Venezia, here is someone who cannot accept how fortunate she truly is. It’s time for Tracey Emin to do one thing: Finally learn the art of good grace and thankfulness.

     

    Pictured top: Artist who allegedly doesn’t like parties (and claims not to be taken seriously) Tracey Emin CBE, RA at various parties.

     

    Tracey Emin drunk Vivienne Westwood
    Tracey Emin – whom once claimed: “I’m simply not willing to pay tax at 50%… I’m seriously considering leaving Britain” – with fellow fruitcake Dame Vivienne Westwood, DBE, RDI, a woman who curiously based her companies in Luxembourg and got turfed out of the Green Party as a result (left) and slumped drunk in a car after a night out, um, er, partying.
    Tracey Emin’s ‘My Bed’ (1999).
    Tracey Emin’s ‘My Bed’ (1999).

    Tracey Emin on…

    Life:

    “I found that life has to be edited to continue.”

     

    “I had become conscious of my physicality, aware of my presence and open to the ugly truths of the world. At the age of 13, I realised that there was a danger in innocence and beauty and I could not live with both.”

     

    Gender:

    “A man doesn’t know what it’s like to be a woman. It’s that simple.”

     

    Her childhood:

    “I never grew up.”

     

    Her birthday and bodies in the Thames:

    “My New Year’s Eve is always 2nd July, the night before my birthday. That’s the night I make my resolutions. And this year scares the life out of me, because no matter how successful, how good things appear, there is always a deep core of failure within me, although I am trying to deal with it.”

     

    “My biggest fear, this coming year, is that I will be waking up alone. It makes me wonder how many bodies will be fished out of the Thames, how many decaying corpses will be found in one-room flats. I’m just being realistic.”

     

    Herself as an artist:

    “I think I’ve been overlooked. I think they just thought I was some sort of narcissistic, deranged, screaming banshee.”

     

    “There’s a part of you that has to go deep inside, like I say, ‘inside the cave’, and if you don’t go inside the cave, you’re never going to make any art. You need to be able to stand and see yourself to be able to make the art.”

     

    Beds:

    “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in the bedroom like some people who just go to bed and never get out again.”

     

    Her friends:

    “I have hardly any friends who aren’t gay.”

     

    “I really love animals. My little cat is my little soulmate. He’s not just a cat, he’s my friend.”

     

    Having children:

    “My mum has never wanted me to have children. She thinks I would be destroying my life, even now.”

     

    “I’d make a good friend, not mother. I’m too selfish. I think a lot of mothers are selfish and they end up having children, but I don’t want to put some tiny small person through that.”

     

    Failure:

    “I had to come to terms with my failure as an artist… I had to find a way for myself.”

     

    Art and commerce:

    “I’m not opposed to commerce, even though I’m an artist.”

     

    Success and censorship:

    “One thing that success has taught me is censorship.”

     

    Truth:

    “What is truth? Truth doesn’t really exist.”

     

    “Maybe I don’t believe things myself… Truth is such a transient thing.”

     

    Revenge:

    “People don’t remember. Revenge is sweet.”

     

    The art world’s opinions of her:

    “I’ve been slagged off completely by the art world.”

     

    Her mistakes:

    “All the mistakes I’ve ever made in my life have been when I’ve been drunk. I haven’t made hardly any mistakes sober, ever, ever.”

     

    “Me and my mum were in Margate, sitting on a bench eating some jellied eels, when the scout person came and asked us if we would be extras [in the BBC’s Only Fools and Horses]… I thought I was too good to be an extra in Fools And Horses. How deranged was I?”

     

    Asking for an apology:

    “I don’t ask for an apology because it’s only tomorrow’s fish-and-chip paper.”

     

    Brexit:

    “It isn’t pushing people away, it isn’t pushing the whole of Britain away, it isn’t about Britain being demoted to some tiny demented island in the North Sea. It’s about people like me saying I’m very proud to be British.”

     

    “If we leave Europe and it turns out OK and we’re happy eating our cabbages and we’re happy living on an island with our island mentality then fine, I’ll go along with that.”

     

    Tony Blair and David Cameron:

    “Both of these men, who are fine politicians and essentially good people, will be remembered in history for doing the most terrible things to our political system and I don’t understand why they fell for it; I don’t understand why they did it.”

     

    “It really aggrieves me to know that I supported both of these men. All I know is that with both of these actions, we are in such a mess.”

     

    Boris Johnson:

    “I saw twits like Boris Johnson run when it actually dawned on him what he was doing.”

     

    What she thinks of other people:

    “People try constantly to use me and I hate it.”

     

    What she thinks of herself:

    “I’m better than all of you.”

     

    “I’m such a nice person and I have a couple of drinks and I’m really good fun and then I’m really not fun.”

     

    What she thinks other people think of her:

    “They look at someone like me and I just really get up their nose. I really wind them up.”

     

    Tracey Emin selfie
    When she’s not out partying, Tracey Emin focuses on taking selfies and self-promotion. She clearly just cannot help herself.
  • The Art of Ownership – Glebe Place, Pugachev, Sickert & Tolstoy

    The Art of Ownership – Glebe Place, Pugachev, Sickert & Tolstoy

    Double artist’s studio in Glebe Place, Chelsea that has been home to a fugitive billionaire oligarch, a Tolstoy and a man suspected of being Jack the Ripper slashed in price by 25%; it is now subject to a forced sale

    • House in Glebe Place, Chelsea, SW3 created from two artist’s studios reduced in price from just under £9 million to £6.95 million as part of a sale forced by authorities.
    • It was home to the now in exile fugitive billionaire Sergei Pugachev and his ex-partner Alexandra Tolstoy from 2009.
    • Previous occupants include the artist Sir William Rothenstein and before him his fellow artist friend Walter Sickert – a man the author Patricia Cornwell spent £6 million trying to prove to be the serial killer Jack the Ripper.
    • Alexandra Tolstoy bleated to the ‘Mail Online’ about how she’d been “evicted” from the house 12 days before the coronavirus lockdown in May; her most recent Instagram posts, however, suggest she is still in residence along with her children.

    German born artist Walter Sickert RA (1860 – 1942) took a great interest in the gruesome crimes of Jack the Ripper. He believed he had lodged in a room used by the serial killer and from the 1970s onwards, authors and historians including Patricia Cornwell have suggested he could have been the murderer himself (or possibly his accomplice).

     

    For a time, Sickert – whom counted the newspaper baron Lord Beaverbrook (1879 – 1964) amongst his closest friends and a man lauded by some as “the greatest British painter between Turner and Bacon” – lived in an artist’s studio at 53 Glebe Place in Chelsea and in 1894, a fellow artist, Sir William Rothenstein (1872 – 1945), took the property over. According to Wendy Baron, in her 2012 study of The Camden Town Group in Context for the Tate, the latter was “ever amazed by Sickert’s ‘taste for the dingy lodging-house atmosphere,’ and his ‘genius for discovering the dreariest house and most forbidding rooms in which to work.’”

     

    More recently, in 2009, the now fugitive oligarch Sergei Pugachev – a man nicknamed ‘Putin’s Banker’ (until the one-time billionaire and the President spectacularly fell out) – rented 53 Glebe Place along with his then partner Alexandra Tolstoy. The house was subsequently purchased by a trust in 2010 and in 2011, the adjoining house, 54 Glebe Place, was bought and the two combined to become Pugachev and Tolstoy’s London residence.

     

    The resulting 3,868 square foot single family residence – which includes 3 reception rooms, 5 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms and an interior by designers from Sibyl Colefax and John Fowler described as “exuberant” by House & Garden – features a 57-foot south facing façade and ceiling heights of upto 22-feet. In total, it is believed the price paid for the two properties was around £8.325 million prior to subsequent renovations.

     

    In the years that followed, 53 and 54 Glebe Place have become part of the legal tussle between the Russian government, Sergei Pugachev, his ex-wife Galina Arkhipova, his father Victor Pugachev and his Instagram loving ex-partner Alexandra Tolstoy. With Pugachev Jr. in exile in France, Ms Tolstoy has remained in residence but in 2019, the courts decided the house would have to be sold. It was placed on the market through Savills for £8.975 million.

     

    With Ms Tolstoy subsequently ludicrously claiming at one point she could not live on £10,000 per week or without two drivers and a live-in doctor and then more recently featuring in an hour long BBC documentary in May titled The Countess and the Russian Billionaire, the sordid saga has become very public. Now, this week, the house has been relaunched for just £6.95 million again through Savills.

     

    Whilst a single studio house featured in The Steeple Times in September 2015 was marketed for the seemingly sky-high sum of £5.45 million (it sold in March 2020 for just £4.5 million), even the now reduced figure for the combined 53 and 54 Glebe Place still seems very punchy. On that basis, we imagine, Alexandra Tolstoy may be able to stay there for some time still yet; as she herself once remarked: “We’re just surviving.”

     

    Pictured top: 53 and 54 Glebe Place (left) were bought for a combined sum of around £8.325 million in 2010 and 2011. The resulting house – for which Savills states “steps are currently being taken to obtain the necessary statutory consents” for combination – is now on the market for just £6.95 million; Fugitive oligarch Sergei Pugachev (top right) and socialite ‘adventurer’ Alexandra Tolstoy (bottom right).

     

    The Art of Ownership – 53 and 54 Glebe Place Chelsea, London, SW3 5JB and Pugachev, Sickert and Tolstoy – Double artist’s studio in Chelsea that has been home to a fugitive billionaire oligarch, a Tolstoy and a man suspected of being Jack the Ripper slashed in price by 25%; it is now subject to a forced sale – Offered for sale by Savills for £6.95 million down from £8.975 million.
    The house in question – 53 and 54 Glebe Place, Chelsea, London, SW3 5JB, United Kingdom.
    The Art of Ownership – 53 and 54 Glebe Place Chelsea, London, SW3 5JB and Pugachev, Sickert and Tolstoy – Double artist’s studio in Chelsea that has been home to a fugitive billionaire oligarch, a Tolstoy and a man suspected of being Jack the Ripper slashed in price by 25%; it is now subject to a forced sale – Offered for sale by Savills for £6.95 million down from £8.975 million.
    Sick Dick? Walter Sickert photographed in 1911 by George Beresford (top left); ‘Jack the Ripper’s Bedroom’ painted by Sickert in 1906 – 1907, the oil on canvas was bequeathed by Mrs Mary Cicely Tatlock to the Manchester Art Gallery in 1980 (top right); The setting for the painting and the home of Walter Sickert, 6 Mornington Crescent, Camden, NW1 now has a Greater London Council blue plaque commemorating the painter and etcher’s residence there.
    In 2017, best-selling author Patricia Cornwell claimed she had spent over £5.6 million “proving” that Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper.
    The Art of Ownership – 53 and 54 Glebe Place Chelsea, London, SW3 5JB and Pugachev, Sickert and Tolstoy – Double artist’s studio in Chelsea that has been home to a fugitive billionaire oligarch, a Tolstoy and a man suspected of being Jack the Ripper slashed in price by 25%; it is now subject to a forced sale – Offered for sale by Savills for £6.95 million down from £8.975 million.
    Old Battersea House, 30 Vicarage Crescent, Battersea, London, SW11 3LD, United Kingdom is another house that Pugachev and Tolstoy plainly purchased at a crazy price. They paid £12.5 million and it is now for sale for just £9.975 million. The house was previously owned by the late billionaire publishing magnate Malcolm Forbes.

    The Names & Numbers – 53 and 54 Glebe Place, Chelsea, London, SW3 5JB, United Kingdom

     

    June 2020 – The combined house is relaunched for sale at a reduced price of £6.95 million ($8.62 million, €7.69 million or درهم31.66 million) by Savills, a discount of 23% on the previous asking price.

    May 2020 – Alexandra Tolstoy claimed she had “been evicted from her multi-million home with only 12 days notice during the coronavirus outbreak” in comments to the Mail Online. Posts in June 2020, however, indicate her still to be in residence at Glebe Place with her children.

    January 2020 – The Evening Standard reported that Galina Arkhipova “lost her bid to win a share” of the Glebe Place property. Chief Master Marsh dismissed Arkhipova’s claim on the basis of her “casual approach” to “complying with a court order requiring her to make full disclosure of her bank statements and access to legal documents, as well as her ‘unexplained failure’ to attend the latest hearing or instruct lawyers.”

    2019 – Placed for sale for £8.975 million ($11.134 million, €9.929 million or درهم40.890 million) through Savills after the order of the courts.

    October 2018 – At a “commercial court hearing, the judge, Master Price, made an order compelling the sale of Pugachev’s London home” according to the Guardian. A deadline was set for Ms Tolstoy to move out of January 2019 and at this time also, Pugachev’s former wife, Galina Arkhipova, “said she was also laying claim to the Glebe Place property, arguing that the house was a matrimonial asset.”

    February 2016 – In absentia, Sergei Pugachev is found guilty of contempt at the high court in London and sentenced to two years in prison. The “convenient dissident” was described as someone who “could not be trusted” and subsequently, a warrant for his arrest was issued. To this day, Mr Pugachev has positioned himself as an innocent man and a “victim of Putin’s revenge.”

    March 2012 – Mr Pugachev changed the locks at Glebe Place and “refused to let [Ms Tolstoy] back in. Pugachev subsequently visited Count Nikolai Tolstoy, the father of Alexandra Tolstoy, and explained that the Glebe Place house was controlled by a trust and that “he had bought Old Battersea House in a trust for Ms Tolstoy and the children… Old Battersea House was to be the family home and he and Ms Tolstoy were going to live there with the children.”

    December 2011 – Old Battersea House is purchased for £12.5 million ($15.5 million, €13.8 million or درهم56.9 million) supposedly in a trust to benefit Alexandra Tolstoy and her three children with Sergei Pugachev. That house was subsequently offered for sale in 2017 for £12 million ($14.8 million, €13.3 million or درهم54.7 million) and is now on the market for just £9.975 million ($12.370 million, €11.031 million or درهم45.429 million) through Savills in June 2020.

    July 2011 – Assuming the legal document figures to be exact, the total paid to purchase 53 and 54 Glebe Place was £8.325 million ($10.324 million, €9.208 million or درهم37.915 million).

    July 2011 – 54 Glebe Place is purchased for a sum undisclosed on Land Registry Records through a trust. The two houses are subsequently merged as one. At around this time, Victor Pugachev “provided another loan of £4.2 million ($5.2 million, €4.6 million or درهم19.1 million) to Redflame as a loan” for the purchase. Legal documents state: “Later accounting documents show the lender as Mr Pugachev and include a loan agreement executed by Mr Pugachev and Redflame.”

    July 2010 – 53 Glebe Place is purchased for a sum undisclosed on Land Registry Records through a trust, the ownership deed reportedly being in the names of Sergei Pugachev and Victor Pugachev (his father, as “beneficiary and Protector”). At around this time, Victor Pugachev “provided £4.125 million ($5.115 million, €4.562 million or درهم18.788 million) to Redflame as a loan” for the purchase.

    2009 – Sergei Pugachev and Alexandra Tolstoy rented 53 Glebe Place as their London home.

    July 2009 – 54 Glebe is sold for £2.55 million ($3.16 million, €2.82 million or درهم11.61 million) according to the Land Registry.

    January 2005 – 54 Glebe is sold for £2.175 million ($2.698 million, €2.405 million or درهم9.906 million) according to the Land Registry.

    March 2001 – 54 Glebe is sold for £1.8 million ($2.2 million, €2 million or درهم8.2 million) according to the Land Registry.

    March 1995 – 54 Glebe is sold for £900,000 ($1.1 million, €995,000 or درهم4.1 million) acording to the Land Registry.

    Facebook: @TheSteepleTimes

    Instagram: @TheSteepleTimes

    Twitter: @SteepleTimes

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnyQhDrIAFk
  • Terrible Tracey

    Terrible Tracey

    Tracey Emin announces she’s quitting London after her plans to construct a carbuncle that resembles a Hitler-esque oven are rejected; Londoners rejoice

     

    Tracey Emin CBE, RA is no doubt liked by somebody, somewhere. She’s made a fortune from what she calls “art” and though her unmade bed is often derided as one of the most stupid creations ever, she had the last laugh when it sold for millions.

     

    Now, though, this vastly overrated multi-millionairess member of ‘The Club’ is moaning that she’s “not wanted” in London anymore and is quitting for pastures new. Her reason? Tower Hamlets Council rejected her plans to demolish a listed building in Spitalfields and replace it with a carbuncle resembling one of Hitler’s ovens.

     

    Terrible Tracey – Tracey Emin announces she’s quitting London after her plans to construct a carbuncle that resembles a Hitler-esque oven are rejected; Londoners rejoice
    A perfectly fine listed 1920s building stands on the site currently (centre right)

    Terrible Tracey – Tracey Emin announces she’s quitting London after her plans to construct a carbuncle that resembles a Hitler-esque oven are rejected; Londoners rejoice
    Ms Emin wished to replace it with this hideous carbuncle

    Terrible Tracey – Tracey Emin announces she’s quitting London after her plans to construct a carbuncle that resembles a Hitler-esque oven are rejected; Londoners rejoice
    Tracey Emin believes people should “love is what you want”; the people spoke and showed they did not love her terrible proposal

     

    In an interview with The Guardian, Emin – whom bizarrely married a “big f**king stone” earlier this year as she “no longer wants to be alone” and whose palatial East End residence already includes a swimming pool – angrily justified her decision. She remarked:

     

    “Tower Hamlets says: ‘We don’t want you’… Well, there’s plenty of other places that do. It’s that simple”.

     

    “Why would you want to be somewhere you’re not wanted? What I’m going to do now is move out of London. I don’t have any choice on that… There’s places now in Britain that are desperate for artists – Margate’s thriving, Folkestone, Hastings. All that Kent coast. And I could have a giant studio and be really relaxed”.

     

    “I’m an international artist who hasn’t got enough room to swing a cat at the moment… If I knocked it down and built a hotel or flats I could greatly benefit. I could build eight, nine, ten flats in here”.

     

    Of the objections to her proposals, she added:

     

    “I’m in a vulnerable place right now… I was scared about having to take all these people on my own – it’s a big thing”.

     

    “I just feel I’ve been pretty bullied by the whole thing and I don’t want to be bullied any more… I don’t get the reaction I get from people”.

     

    In response to Ms Emin’s remarks, local resident Susie Stape told The Steeple Times:

     

    “What this woman, best known for her ghastly unmade bed ‘artwork’, wanted to build looked like something straight out of Auschwitz. It was highly offensive in an area traditionally linked to refugees and all I can say is that I pity wherever Tracey Emin heads next. She’s a blight on any community and we’re so delighted that we’ll soon be rid of her”.

     

    Ms Stape is right: God helps whatever community Terrible Tracey descends on next.

     

    Terrible Tracey – Tracey Emin announces she’s quitting London after her plans to construct a carbuncle that resembles a Hitler-esque oven are rejected; Londoners rejoice
    A side view of the rejected design

    Terrible Tracey – Tracey Emin announces she’s quitting London after her plans to construct a carbuncle that resembles a Hitler-esque oven are rejected; Londoners rejoice
    Another projection of the ugly building that has thankfully been rejected

  • Sculpting a Residence

    Sculpting a Residence

    Former residence of sculptor with Liz Hurley as a neighbour for sale in Chelsea

     

    The self-described ‘actress’ and diva Liz Hurley is probably the most famous ‘name’ living in cherry tree lined Redcliffe Road, SW10 but a slightly more talented former resident was a sculptor named Alice Lindley-Millican (married in 1917, died November 1930). Her former home, one of just four houses built as artist’s studios in the street, is now for sale.

     

    Sculpting a Residence – Redcliffe Road, London, SW10 9NQ – £5.45 million ($6.6 million or €6.1 million) – Strutt & Parker – Former home and studio of sculptor Alice Lindley-Millican
    Liz Hurley in the street with her then partner Shane Warne

     

    Presented today as a family home and completely reconfigured, the 3,322 square foot freehold residence became home to Mrs Albert Millican – as she was widely referred to – circa 1915. It has accommodation over four floors complete with a dramatic curved staircase between the ground and lower ground floors and 3 reception rooms, 4 bedrooms – including one with a vast window that would also make it suited to be used as an artist’s studio still –and 3 bathrooms. A conservatory breakfast room leads onto a cleverly designed landscaped garden whilst the selling agents, Strutt & Parker, remark that “this [is a] much loved family home offering exceptional entertaining space”.

     

    Given the house is priced at £5.45 million ($6.6 million or €6.1 million) it is most certainly out of the realms of most artists.

     

    Sculpting a Residence – Redcliffe Road, London, SW10 9NQ – £5.45 million ($6.6 million or €6.1 million) – Strutt & Parker – Former home and studio of sculptor Alice Lindley-MillicanSculpting a Residence – Redcliffe Road, London, SW10 9NQ – £5.45 million ($6.6 million or €6.1 million) – Strutt & Parker – Former home and studio of sculptor Alice Lindley-MillicanSculpting a Residence – Redcliffe Road, London, SW10 9NQ – £5.45 million ($6.6 million or €6.1 million) – Strutt & Parker – Former home and studio of sculptor Alice Lindley-MillicanSculpting a Residence – Redcliffe Road, London, SW10 9NQ – £5.45 million ($6.6 million or €6.1 million) – Strutt & Parker – Former home and studio of sculptor Alice Lindley-MillicanSculpting a Residence – Redcliffe Road, London, SW10 9NQ – £5.45 million ($6.6 million or €6.1 million) – Strutt & Parker – Former home and studio of sculptor Alice Lindley-MillicanSculpting a Residence – Redcliffe Road, London, SW10 9NQ – £5.45 million ($6.6 million or €6.1 million) – Strutt & Parker – Former home and studio of sculptor Alice Lindley-MillicanSculpting a Residence – Redcliffe Road, London, SW10 9NQ – £5.45 million ($6.6 million or €6.1 million) – Strutt & Parker – Former home and studio of sculptor Alice Lindley-MillicanSculpting a Residence – Redcliffe Road, London, SW10 9NQ – £5.45 million ($6.6 million or €6.1 million) – Strutt & Parker – Former home and studio of sculptor Alice Lindley-Millican

     

  • Reader Offer: What makes art sell? – A panel debate

    Reader Offer: What makes art sell? – A panel debate

    ‘The Steeple Times’ invites readers to attend its first panel debate and drinks reception where the topic will be: “What makes art sell?” (more…)

  • Picture of the Week: Zobop

    Picture of the Week: Zobop

    The Royal Academy surpasses themselves in the choice of including a stunning staircase as part of their Summer Exhibition 2015 (more…)

  • Professor Ken Howard OBE, RA

    Professor Ken Howard OBE, RA

    Ken HowardLondon born Ken Howard is renowned as a painter of scenes in London, Cornwall and Venice. (more…)

  • Suddenly Last Summer

    Suddenly Last Summer

    Jack Vetrianno puts painting on the market (and throws in a flat)

     

    Whoever buys Scottish artist Jack Vettriano OBE’s £2 million flat in Pont Street, Knightsbridge gets not only a one bedroomed flat, but also a painting titled Suddenly Last Summer. (more…)

  • Peter Wetherell: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”

    Peter Wetherell: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”

    20 questions with Peter Wetherell, Mayfair’s leading estate agent

     

    The Steeple Times shares “wit and wisdom”. What’s your guiding force?

    The revival of Mayfair as the best residential village of what is now called “Prime Central London” (PCL).

     

    “Don’t get even, get medieval” is, in our humble opinion, a great motto. What’s yours?

    “Better as a friend than an enemy”.

      (more…)

  • Andrew Hancock: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”

    Andrew Hancock: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”

    The Steeple Times asks artist Andrew Hancock: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”

     

    The Steeple Times shares “wit and wisdom”. What’s your guiding force?

    “The increasing sense that time is speeding up”.

     

    “Don’t get even, get medieval” is, in our humble opinion, a great motto. What’s yours?

    “Fearless for Your Love Forever!” – I inscribed it into the surface of a recent artwork that appears in my latest exhibition. It may be the first truly heartfelt line I’ve written in months and stands as a declaration to succeed despite all odds. That and a quote from Albert Finney’s character in Saturday Night Sunday Morning… “Don’t let the bastards grind you down!” – I like that one.

      (more…)