ALAN DODD was born in Kent in 1942. He attended Ashford Grammar School, Maidstone College of Art (where David Hockney was one of his teachers) and then the Painting School at the Royal Academy. By the 1970s he was painting murals : five large architectural capricci for the Painted Room at the Victoria & Albert Museum, architectural panels after Piranesi for Alexandra Palace in 1987, the trompe l’oeil decoration on the Vardy staircase at Spencer House and the Pompeiian ceiling decoration in the New Picture Room at Sir John Soane’s Museum.

This is his flat above a shop in north London, where a fine carpet of London dust has patinated the walls and paintwork and a clutter of artist’s materials has colonized almost every surface.

A few paintings from his ‘Magic Realism’ phase are hanging about on the stairs. He designed the Millennium Cross, a memorial to Cardinal Hume, set up outside Westminster Cathedral in October 2001. This is one of his masterpieces, another is this painting of Fonthill Abbey done in 1974, which so far, he refuses to sell.                  www.alandodd.co.uk

Fonthill Abbey, Alan Dodd ( after the Cattermole print)

[All images : copyright bibleofbritishtaste.com / Alan Dodd ]