Tony’s story… and a handful of others

 

Painting is about stories. Stories are why people want paintings. You’ve probably come across Tony in the wild. He practices his art form clad in a blazer at Henley, stood atop a wrecked lorry cab on the banks of the Nile, Knee deep in a Cornish harbour. It’s usually daylight and there’s stories and life unfolding around him and in the painting.

 

Tony began as a caricature artist around the tables of London. Capturing an accurate yet entertaining, razor sharp likeness, in poor lighting whilst holding the attention of a rowdy crowd. Armed him with a speed and playfully robust approach that has travelled with him into his painting career. A good caricaturist can transcend  the likeness of a portrait and pin a sitters soul to the canvas. Tony created work in-house for the first two series of Sky’s Portrait Artist of the Year and created a vast portrait keepsake for Prince William and his colleagues in the RAF.

 

Tony volunteered for the RNLI for 26 years, Qualified as a Search and Rescue Commander in 2012 and became skipper of the Brighton Lifeboat. All of those wildly entertaining stories feature corpses….best not to ask. Now he is a Trustee of a tiny charity, Search And Rescue Relief, that supplies boats, equipment and training to lifeboat crews operating in the hazard zones of the migrant crisis. Always a sailor, Tony has sailed everywhere there is water and now paints from his own boat in the Solent. Some of his finest paintings have been created from the deck of a boat or the deflating sides of a rubber dinghy. 

 

He began his now infamous nomadic painting adventures in Jersey, then Guernsey, during the Pandemic. He realised that many of his collectors have interesting jobs for the Foreign Office or second homes in the sun and that he could swap paintings for hosting on sparkling Caribbean beaches or snow capped mountains while he explored with his easel. Tony was invited to paint the ambassador’s residence in Cairo and surrounding areas with the use of an armoured car, an arabic speaker and a lot of suncream, He produced 12 paintings that week and was moved on at machine gun point three times, something that just doesn’t happen in Cornwall!

 

You will find the results of this work at Tony’s solo shows, on this website and occasionally in galleries near where it was produced. If you would like to find out about a specific piece email Tony, Clair or Hania at artistonthehill@gmail.com Clair deals with the admin (artists are notoriously chaotic) and Hania deals with prints and licensing.