Wot? No fish!!

Delightful exhibition at the Festival Hall of drawings done by Ab Solomons for his wife  done on the back of his wage packets for over 55 years.

These pictures were so charming and told the story of their life together, both the ups and downs of daily life. In all the collection includes over 3000 images starting with simple doodles and growing in complexity. Ab’s wife Celia appears in every picture. The story has been made into a play.

There seemed to be a running theme of Ab dressing badly with one lovely picture of him holding up a tweed jacket and her pointing out he needed a dinner jacket for the Golders’s Green Hippodrome.  Their lovely yellow kitchen appeared at lot. Occasionally a wall appears between them which I guess means they’d had an argument.  Some of the pictures were quite saucy in a seaside postcard sort of way.

I think my favourites were the one I’ve used as a picture plus one where she sits knitting and he’s standing in his overcoat, she is saying “Must you drag me into your mad search for pleasure”.

I found this show really touching and admit to shedding a tear at the lovely picture of long love that his pictures conjured up.

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