* PETER HOWSON OBE (SCOTTISH b. 1958), CAPOCCHIO

oil on canvas, signed, titled and dated 2010 label verso framed image size 61cm x 46cm, overall size 68cm x 53cm Label verso: Flowers Gallery, London Note: Peter Howson is an artist of disarming visual honesty. His work, which at different stages of his career has celebrated allergy and allegorised celebrity, depicting the landscapes of modern war and internal struggle with a Goyaesque brilliance, is testament to an obsessive occupation with the dark recesses of existence, a drive that he has channelled in recent years into a robust faith and spiritualism. The painting on offer here is Howson’s modern interpretation of the Character and probably has elements of a self portrait with “Bowie Eyes” and is part of a group of portraits executed in 2010 and inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy. Bowie was well known for his extra ordinary talents as an actor, songwriter musician and chameleon leaving a wide body of work across many art forms. Capocchio was well known in his day for his extraordinary talent for mimicking others and nature (as an artist). According to early commentators, Dante knew Capocchio personally and he was from either Florence or Siena. Capocchio was Condemned in 1293 as a Heretic and an alchemist.