ART Special
SISTER Mary Joy Langdon is not good with names. Or faces. So when her friend David Dawson introduced her to his fellow artist at her Wormwood Scrubs Pony Centre in west London, the Roman Catholic nun promptly forgot what he'd said, and instead handed his guest a book, The Allen Book of Painting and Drawing Horses (a book for “budding artists of all ages” by Jennifer Bell). The artist slowly turned every page, before returning it, saying, “Thank you, it's very good.”
As they toured the yard, Mary Joy said: “I'm terrible with names! Remind me of yours?”
“It's Lucian,” he replied. And still it didn't register, until an art student volunteer nearby wailed, “Mary Joy, how can you not know who Lucian Freud is?”
Mary Joy introduced Lucian to her grey Arab, called Relief, as he had specifically asked to paint this breed. Relief was a perfect schoolmaster, wonderful with the disabled children who came for riding lessons (the
