Patrick Procktor 1936-2003

‘Procktor’s most enviable gift is, perhaps, the ability to tell the truth about small things - the fall of light, the angle of a head or hand. They give the best pictures the immediate quality of diary entries.’’
Critic Peter Campbell, Patrick Procktor, The Listener, 18 May 1972

Patrick Procktor emerged in the 1960s London art scene to great acclaim. A sell-out show at The Redfern Gallery in 1963 was followed in 1964 by his inclusion in the Whitechapel Gallery’s The New Generation (curated by Bryan Robertson), alongside many of the most exciting artists of the period, including Patrick Caulfield, John Hoyand, Bridget Riley and David Hockney.

Procktor, who trained at the Slade School of Art, met Hockney while he was studying at the Royal College of Art and the two became great friends and contemporaries at the heart of London’s art scene in the 1960s and 70s. In technique, they both shared a distinct eye for line, colour and space in images that are immediately evocative of the period, and sharply felt in the present example. It depicts Kirsten Benson, whom Procktor first met in the 1960s. Kirsten’s husband had set up Odin’s restaurant in Marylebone, and it was following his death in a car accident, leaving Kirsten a young widow with two children, that Peter Langan took on the restaurant. That became Langan's first foray into the restaurant business before opening the legendary Langan’s Brasserie, which became a mecca for artists, musicians, actors and royalty. Langan commissioned Procktor and Hockney regularly to produce artwork for the restaurant and its menus.

Procktor and Kirsten were good friends and in 1970 they moved in together. He proposed marriage on several occasions, Kirsten only accepting when she became pregnant in 1973 – and the arrival of their son Nicholas in 1974. Although Procktor was gay, the marriage was loving and suited their present circumstances. Procktor painted a fabulous large-scale portrait of Kirsten in her Ossie Clarke wedding dress in 1973 (private collection). The present, more intimate drawing dates to 1975 when in the company of friends, they travelled to Sidi Bou Said, a town in Tunisia.

The drawing comes from the Estate of Richard Shepherd, C.B.E (1945-2022) - renowned Michelin-starred chef who joined forces with Michael Caine and Peter Langan in 1977 to run Langan’s Brasserie in Mayfair, at its peak the most fashionable destination in London. Caine recalled, “After a few months of working with [Langan] I realised I needed a chef who was not only brilliant but also sober, which was how Richard Shepherd became the chef and third partner at Langan’s.” A wonderful drawing of the three of them by Hockney in 1973 was sold at Sotheby's London (26 June 2018, lot 24). After Langan’s death in 1988, Shepherd took over the running of the business. He co-founded the Royal Academy of Culinary Arts and was awarded a CBE for services to the catering industry in 2000.