Home News Columnists Ken Oxley

Stringfellow’s no oil painting

May 31 2009 by Ken Oxley, Sunday Sun

THIS rather ugly painting failed to meet its £15,000 reserve price at an auction yesterday, let alone the £22,000 expected. I can’t say I’m surprised.

Why would anyone splash out such a huge sum of money for a picture of Peter Stringfellow reclining on a bed?

That fella’s let himself go, I thought. He used to look quite good in a G-string, as I recall, but now he’s sporting moobs and a beer belly. And why is a black man bearing a passing resemblance to Mike Tyson with an oversized head creeping up on him?

It was all very confusing until an enlightened colleague explained to me that this was, in fact, a painting of Madonna and Guy Ritchie. The man responsible for this disturbing image, Scots painter Peter Howson, was Britain’s official war artist in 1993 during the conflict in Bosnia.

The experience apparently left him severely traumatised, so much so that he suffered a mental breakdown five years later. I think it shows in his work.

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