Tom Phillips, Adrian Mitchell, 1987

Sitter: Adrian Mitchell, poet

Medium/Date: Pencil, 1987

Artist's note:

The idea of making a portrait of Adrian Mitchell grew out of our work on his play Satie Day/Night, for which I made the sets and costumes.

Eric Satie himself in the poster is shown as a Jack-in-the-Box so the idea of toys became a theme that I warmed to, since one of Adrian's chief characteristics as a poet is roughly to have retained the child in himself.

Eventually Adrian turned up with a Chinese fire engine manned by stalwart People's firemen, which echoed the speech in praise of fire engines in the Satie play and recalled, as well, its leitmotif of the Steadfast Tin Soldier.

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