To start with a just a few memories of former colleagues and snippets of memories and minor horror stories. More will follow.
was a colourful figure, an artist who made a living as a cartoonist (most famously for illustrating Major Thompson and then as an art dealer - his son Sebastian is starting out on a career at Artemis. It was Walter who told me that the old German art dealers referred to the idlers and art world groupies who waste so much of one's time (and provide so much of the pleasure of being an art dealer too) as Marine (in German - we would say The Navy); "only the Navy today" - the logic of it was that they were Seeleute (see-people hence sea-folk and navy). Haha.
was another great character - originally a lawyer and magistrate from free Danzig (Gdansk) . He it was who taught me, when a picture fell on the floor, to say "sold". I did not understand and he explained that the idea was that a picture that fell was 'trying to get away' and was therefore likely soon to succeed. But surely I said it can't be quite good for them. "Well no - but on the other hand if they were that fragile they wouldn't have lasted so long."
I once came into the gallery that I had very newly taken over from my father to find a picture missing. I use my words carefully - the picture was missing though the frame was still there and so was the canvas! I couldn't believe my eyes - a blank canvas. Then I looked down and saw the picture face up lying there. I had foolishly and ignorantly hung it over a radiator and overnight the wax relining had melted and the picture, like a postage stamp in water when we were children, had quietly slid off its canvas to the floor. We were able to get it replaced but I learned a lesson; and panel pictures should not be hung over radiators either. Hello
Actually this is a serious subject - you can see what a serious conservator has to say about the care of paintings elsewhere in these pages.
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