Recent additions to our Art Shop include three pencil sketches with Gypsy links. Here's some background on the first...
The family of the Roma scholar Cliff Lee, from Maghull in Liverpool, would spend the summer in the New Forest. Camping in Augustus John’s field at Fryern Court, Fordingbridge and later with Sven Berlin in Emery Down, Cliff would find work as a knife grinder in Southampton. The family included son Ken Lee, and our drawing pictures him in a feathered cap in 1962.
Above: Sven's drawing of Ken Lee, Ken in 2015 and the pencil sketch of his father Cliff.
Now a highly qualified academic, Dr Ken Lee visited the Sven Berlin collection in 2015 on a visit to the UK from his home in Australia where he lectured in Anthropology and Sociology. Here he is pictured with Sven’s oil painting of him completed in 1964. Ken was delighted to see the Sven Berlin collection which includes the oil portrait of his father also completed that year. Cliff Lee was also painted by Augustus John.
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