Painting The Louvre

'Pavillon de Flore' 9½x4½" oil on panel

On a recent visit to my parents' in Oxford I found this old painting that I made when I was 18 or 19 (I think just 19).

It was done on the spot in Paris on a trip that I made with my friend the painter Donald Short. I remember that while we were painting we were both swarmed by hordes of Japanese tourists. It is pretty small as it had to be transportable as were carting around quite a bit of painting equipment between us.

It was a trip that we financed by painting a double-decker bus as a playbus for ASDA supermarkets. The stay in Paris was unbelievably cheap, we stayed in a brothel (which is another story) and kept on being stopped by the police... well we were slightly "dodgy" looking art students after all.

The painting is of the Pavillon de Flore (a section of the Palais du Louvre, built in 1607) and the Pont Royal. During the French Revolution this pavilion, which is really an extension of the Grande Gallerie, was the home of the infamous Committee of Public Safety.