Printed on heavy 315gsm etching paper.
Limited Edition of 50
Signed by the artist.
Frame not supplied.
Before the war, my dad’s generation played on Ryde beach.
My Auntie Elizabeth, Uncle Colin, and their mate George Gribble who became a Spitfire ace.
My late mother in law, Barbara was also part of that gang and she said she saw the Hindenburg glide overhead one evening. I was struck by the vision of this shining airborne giant over quaint Victorian Ryde, whose pier is being illuminated by a sunset as a steam train leaves for Ventnor, a resort to this day, relatively unhurt by the ravages of thoughtless profit.
I’ve made it a May evening in 1937:
The huge Deco dreamship is the length of a liner and is on its last journey to Lakehurst where it will crash and burn in seconds thanks to its lethally unstable contents.
The insane sunset is a bit of a plot spoiler.
I was thinking about the woman, the pun-enabling Lorraine, and how she could be best represented, when in a moment of pure joy and coincidence I found my muse. Gloria Swanson, as part of an incredibly well painted surreal collage from 1929 called The Sea. The artist is a short-lived genius called Koga Harue. What convinced me was this figure pointing to an airship. Kismet.
I was wondering how I could include the Eastern Gardens in the foreground (long since bull-dozered) when I came up with a Hockney sculpture park.
I created a town planner with vision. Three months before its creator’s birth a preemptive celebration of the Barnsley boy’s genius is installed at very little expense by his persistance. What a gent. And he didn’t even exist.