From The National Gallery in London. The Rokeby- Venus

is a wellknown painting by Diego Velasques. 

The girl in front of me is from Japan.

I visited National Gallery in London last week. In one of the galleries I met with this man.

I am sorry I did not write down his name. Neither the artist. 

But I was fascinated by his appearance, and stirn gaze. He looked quite modern.

I brought him home.

My way home today!

Dagens Mickey Mouse

The Mickey of Today

Paris

Went to Paris the other day.

 Took me about an hour and a half. By air.

The first time I went there it took me almost ten days. On my thumb, hitchhiking.

 It was in 1961 and hitchiking was very common by that time. 

"We all" practiced that. 

My aim was to visit Mr Picasso. My teacher in art had told me, and showed me pictures, 

made by Picasso. Among other ones the Guernica. And off I went to Paris.

I wanted to be an artist. Or an animator. And The Artist was Picasso. I must see him!

When I arrived at Rue des Grands Augustines, the gates were locked.

I rang the bell, and waited. Perhaps he would arrive himself. 

Hello Pablo ..! 

But no answer,  I rang and rang. An old man approached me, passed me, 

and told me Pablo was in Mougins, or was it Vallauris, I don´t remember. 

Anyhow, I was tired of travelling alone, hitchiking, I met two swedish guys,

we joined and had a nice evening and night in Pigalle. 

Then I day I went to see the Louvre, and the Versailles. I passed

Arc de Triomph where a newpaperboy told me Hemmingway had commited suicide. 

I bought a paper, went into a boot where you could breath fresh air. 

For a couple of centimes.

Then I went home, and began my artstudies. 

Now, 52 years later, I am at the gates again.

And the doorbell looks the same, probable even the ironwork.

 Picasso is dead, I am soon seventy. And I find the life very strange.

(Animator? I never saw Mr Disney either. Wrote letters, never got answers.)

Palais de Justice.

This autumn I made a journey to Belgium. Saw some of the wellknown sites from WW1. First I went to Brussels. There, at Palais de Justice I met this man.

Peter and I often went to Denmark.  Doing reportage about people and places.
Ususally we went there by train.
After being quite for half an hour, reading the paper, Peter looked out through the window, halted a while, thought a for a moment and said something he was quite sure of: "From here comes Harry Hjörne.." 
I caught the moment, it was ten o´clock. The year was 1986. We were both in the beginning of something.
Then we arrived at Helsingborg, took a ferry to Elsinore, where Hamlet once dwelled,  and from there on rail to Copenhagen. 

Cat on a Hot Tinroof

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF

Three sketches from first row, at

Folkteatern in Gothenburg. 

Victoria Brattström as Maggie and

Ingvar Hirdvall as Big Daddy Pollitt.

Tuscola, Il.

is a goodforgiven town I visited some years ago. I stayed at a windy motel, 

met the Sheriff, sat by the road and made this aquarell. 

This once was a fertile, grassy praire, I was told, where indians dwelled. 

Mr Mayer lives over there. Or did in 1986. Besides being a farmer

he was keen on collecting old cars. 

Spoke of the corn, the market, and the weather. 

The land he looked out over was owned by a lady living in Germany.

Eventually I filled the car, went north, approaching Chicago.

I will probably never se Tuscola again.

Paris

Twice a year I went to the Fashion Week in Paris.

Being a fashion illustrator was something new to me.

The Editor asked me: do you manage drawing clothes.

Well, I said, I have never really tried.

Since art school, many years ago.

And so he sent me off to Paris. And I returned for almost

ten years. Autumn and spring Hautcouture and Pretaporter. 

I learned to know Paris. By foot. 

I often visited Restaurant des Beaux- Arst.

The food excellent.

Lot of guests.

Very smokey.

Busy.

I think it isn´t there longer.

Gone.

 

And so one day I passed Robert Altman, sitting outside the Louvre,

direting Sophia Loren and Julia Roberts in a movie titled

Pret-a-Porter. Sophia Loren acted, but Julia Roberts was not to be seen.

Sorry so.

 

Suzanne Brögger was at the Book Fair this year. 

Prinsen av Mogadonien is her latest book. What made me start reading 

Brögger is a book titled Tone. That book made Peter and me going to Copenhagen doing some small talk. Home at the Bröggers. About the importance of knowing how to tell a story. And do it.

Suzanne Brögger is doing it constantly.

Huntingtons Gallery Pasadena

Once upon a time ...

I was a rather diligent blogger.

Pictures and writings.

No I think it is time to catch up again.

So let us start.

 

This interior painting I found in Huntingtons Gallery in Pasadena. 

I like pub och bar interiors.

 Perhaps because I myself  made 

so many of them while hitchiking around in the seventies. 

Tipsy people are mostly friendly people and they

often offered me a pint if I made a portrait, or sketched 

the interior of the pub. 

Drinking, smoking and sketching, not bad.

Take a look of the butcher? to the right. Feeding? the

five, six cats.  He is the star of the scen.

And the lit up yellow floor is the stage. Light from sun to gas.

Early american painting. By whom, I am ignorant.

Wish I was there and then.

With my pencil and pad.