Patrick Procktor

Patrick Procktor graduated from the Slade School of Art in London in 1962. Alongside his friend and contemporary, David Hockney, he was an integral part of the artists, designers and musicians who defined London’s cultural scene in the 1960s and 70s. In 1964, he was included in Bryan Robertson's groundbreaking Whitechapel gallery exhibition, The New Generation, which feature the work of twelve young artists including Hockney, Patrick Caulfield, John Hoyland and Bridget Riley.

Procktor first visited Italy in 1962 after winning the Abbey Minor scholarship at the Slade, which granted him a £250 travel grant - the start of a long affiliation with the country. In 1971, he had his first exhibition in Venice after gaining the attention of siblings Gabriella and Paolo Cavallino, gallery owners in Venice. Procktor was to exhibit with them for the following decade. Gabriella recalled:

'Both my brother and I were struck by the quality of his work: his personal view of an “English way of living”, full of irony and skill' (quoted in Ian Massey, Patrick Procktor: Art and Life, Unicorn Press 2010, p. 135).

The present work belongs to Procktor's beautiful mural series that adorned the upstairs dining room of Langan's Brasserie in Mayfair, commissioned by Peter Langan in 1979. It allowed Procktor to revisit his earlier Venice paintings and represented the culmination of his Venetian work. Procktor and Langan had first met in the mid-1960s, both residents of Manchester Street in Marylebone. Langan was an enthusiastic collector, and both Procktor and Hockney were closely associated with the success of Langan's Odin's and Brasserie restaurants - the place to be in its heyday, frequented by celebrities including Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, Elizabeth Taylor and Mohammed Ali. The walls were adorned with artwork, often exchanged for food, that gave the establishment its celebrated atmosphere. Procktor produced menu designs for Odin's and Langan's Brasserie. Susan Langan, Peter's wife, recalled how Procktor and Hockney: 'gave it a tremendous cachet of an extraordinarily valuable sort, which gave the whole business a particular edge compared to the other businesses around' (Massey, op. cit., p.146).