Gala Screening
Eight unfinished canvases sit in storage, the remnants of a myth and a career that flared during Britain’s 1960s–70s pop-art boom. Desperate for an inheritance, two siblings recruit a gifted restorer, once a forger, to finish the series and return the works to hiding, ready to be “found” when their father dies. To reach them, she insinuates herself into the artist’s house and daily routine, discovering a fortress of clutter, caustic humour and a man armoured by wit, vanity and fear, an icon who has stopped painting yet cannot stop performing.
Eight unfinished canvases sit in storage, the remnants of a myth and a career that flared during Britain’s 1960s–70s pop-art boom. Desperate for an inheritance, two siblings recruit a gifted restorer, once a forger, to finish the series and return the works to hiding, ready to be “found” when their father dies. To reach them, she insinuates herself into the artist’s house and daily routine, discovering a fortress of clutter, caustic humour and a man armoured by wit, vanity and fear, an icon who has stopped painting yet cannot stop performing.
Eight unfinished canvases sit in storage, the remnants of a myth and a career that flared during Britain’s 1960s–70s pop-art boom. Desperate for an inheritance, two siblings recruit a gifted restorer, once a forger, to finish the series and return the works to hiding, ready to be “found” when their father dies. To reach them, she insinuates herself into the artist’s house and daily routine, discovering a fortress of clutter, caustic humour and a man armoured by wit, vanity and fear, an icon who has stopped painting yet cannot stop performing.
The encounter becomes a duel conducted in sentences and brushstrokes. She studies the work like a conservator, layer by layer, gesture by gesture, until technique reveals biography, and mimicry shades into authorship. As the restorer’s eye parses, the artist is confronted by the one critique he has avoided, honest appraisal from someone who understands both the craft and the cost of making. He parries with provocation, unwilling to cede authority even as his children scheme around him. Dry, acerbic and humane, the piece observes the economics of talent and the intimacy of criticism, finding drama in the fragile space where restoration meets creation, and where a forged line can tell a truer story than the original ever did.
The encounter becomes a duel conducted in sentences and brushstrokes. She studies the work like a conservator, layer by layer, gesture by gesture, until technique reveals biography, and mimicry shades into authorship. As the restorer’s eye parses, the artist is confronted by the one critique he has avoided, honest appraisal from someone who understands both the craft and the cost of making. He parries with provocation, unwilling to cede authority even as his children scheme around him. Dry, acerbic and humane, the piece observes the economics of talent and the intimacy of criticism, finding drama in the fragile space where restoration meets creation, and where a forged line can tell a truer story than the original ever did.
