Julian Williams

In an OCD sort of way I've been cataloguing the various pictures I've bought over the years. In the attic I dug out a small roll of pencil sketches of ballet dancers I bought from an art student in Covent Garden Market in the 1980s. I fell for them at the time, but somehow never got round to doing anything with them, and they've suffered a bit in the meantime, which makes me a bit of an iconclast, I suppose.

I asked the artist for his name when I bought them. He replied that he didn't sign his sketches, so I explained that I wasn't expecting that, but wanted to remember who had drawn them. He wrote his name and address on the back of one of the sheets.

Recently the internet enabled me to track him down. His name is Julian Williams. When I met him he was studying at the Sir John Cass Art School in London. He now lives in the rather splendid Lampeter House in Pembrokeshire, where he runs a publishing company, ‘Two Bad Mice’ and with his wife Mami hosts operatic concerts in the grounds each year.

I was right to buy those sketches; he draws beautifully. This is one of many sketches he did this week on a short break in Venice. It is a family of French tourists he saw in a square; I hope he won’t mind me posting it.



I particularly like a series of drawings and story he did last year, called ‘The Mouse Olympics’, which you can visit here. It deserves to be published, so if anyone reading this agrees and knows the right sort of publisher…