Sir Christopher Le Brun: The leading painter on the homes that have shaped him

39:09He made the right choice. Every other adult in the room, I think, was envying him. But my point is, he cut himself off in his play, in his happy invention. I think he was joined by another child after a while. and I think effectively it's the same thing that as it were I've entered that that place where I can just think freely as it were without responsibility for some time as the painting approaches its conclusion or completion then the world does start to impinge on one a little bit. What's going to happen to it? Am I going to show it? Is it any good? All these other non-art judgments start to come in.

39:59But in the initial phases, there's no difference when the little boy playing on the floor and me with my paints in front of the canvas. So it's in the early stages. I don't want to paint too rosy a picture, as it were, But in the early stages, it's utterly liberating. But later on, the full implications of what one's doing start to occur. And did I read that you, first thing in the morning when you go into your studio, you'll try not to look at the work so that you can almost surprise yourself with it and see it with fresh eyes. Is that right? Yes, I do that regularly. That's so interesting. In fact, I did this morning before you came.

40:45I went to the studio and I went to the studio looking at the floor, making sure I couldn't see the painting on the back wall until I suddenly threw a glance at it. Because in that instantaneous moment, the painting will, as it were, announce its status. And what did you think? It was fine. It was fine. So you think that is now complete? yes but give me a fortnight and something else may happen okay it's a series of tests that the painting needs to resist and if it can resist all those tests different moods different times of the day at night first thing in the morning half light if it can stand up to all that it'll be fine how interesting and it's got to get past charlotte as well that's a lot of layers that is a lot of layers I don't know which the most difficult one is

41:46that's so fascinating I love that so how long could it stay on your wall just being slowly adjusted or not quite right could be months could be months and months some I mean all pictures are all pictures are puzzles and as it were for which there's no solution you don't want there to be a solution but they need to have a sort of self-sustaining enigma that stays fresh. That isn't the same as saying the painting has a secret, because if it does have a secret, I don't know what it is. But if something to do with time, and for example the painting we're looking at on the wall here, that was painted 40 years ago.

42:30It still intrigues me, and that's been tested and tested and tested, as it were, by being exhibited and all sorts of things. And tell us what that was painted for. That was painted, it's the design for the safety curtain of the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. And in fact, you look at the top, do you see the scooped shapes at the top? Above it would have been the coat of arms, the Royal coat of arms. And the colours were all designed to go in with the decor. So it was commissioned, it was informally commissioned in 1983 and it was all agreed and passed all the board came to my studio i remember looking out the window and seeing all these black i know it's a cliche but seeing the the black limousines of the trustees of the royal operas drawing up in bethler green and coming in one by one to look at the painting and all agreeing and wanting it but it was blocked because the the glc fire safety officer who for some reason had immense power decided he wanted the words fire safety curtain written right across the front of it and as you can see it's a it's a big painting it depicts a landscape it's a it's and um john tooley who was the director at the time was up to his ears in trouble at the Opera House.

43:57And they didn't really have the political energy to fight it. It just never happened. If there's anyone out there listening, it's ready to go. It is 60 feet. It's 60 feet wide and 50 feet across. But apart from that, it's ready to go. It's a very beautiful thing. Thank you. Thank you. So I first met you at your home in Camberwell, which is a very beautiful double-fronted Victorian villa and you were there for many years weren't you you and Charlotte and and raised your kids there yes yes so tell us about that house what does that place mean to you well that was um there was a estate agent called Roy Brooks yeah who's was well known for telling the truth about his houses and so one would look up his advertisements just for fun apart from even if one wasn't shopping and we were looking we were living in Bermondsey but we're looking at blackheath and places to find a bigger house that we could possibly afford because there was another child on the way and um there was this house I didn't even know where it was but it looked like a doll's house three windows at the top two door little path wide eaves to the chimneys on either side just the perfect emblematic house in camberwell and then we found out it was in a place called love walk i thought well that's it that's the one so we came and saw it and it was we were and it was a really really really nice house it had a cellar interestingly it showed you how people lived in those days because it didn't it didn't really have a kitchen on the ground floor and you realize that they think the food was probably prepared downstairs and brought up and there was a paneled room downstairs i think possibly someone might have lived there to look after the people who lived in the house so when we were there we we put in a kitchen dining room and all those sort of things and you used an architect to do that didn't you tell us yes we some friends had used david shipperfield to do their house in Camden.

46:07And we enjoyed it very much what they'd done and found out that the project architect was Jamie Fobert, who was at that time working for David. And we were Jamie's first project as an independent architect. That's amazing. He's gone on to do a few things, hasn't he? He has. I'm very, very proud of the fact that Jamie was happy to do it. But this is actually indicative of what Jamie's like because I'd thought of it as a kitchen extension, you see. Can you just put a bit here, a bit of glass here, a bit of that? And Jamie came in and said, no, I'm going to make a bit of architecture. He didn't say that, but that's effectively what he did.

46:46Made substantial walls, changed the direction of the view, put in a very handsome floor, and managed to slot a very considered piece of new architecture somehow in under a Victorian villa. and make the whole thing work, which I think you'd probably agree. That was fantastic. It did. And it kept us there because it was a family room. We were able to carry on living there for some time. What's your happiest memory of being there? Oh, goodness me. It might have been our youngest being born there. In the house? In the house. That's amazing. Yeah. Well, all three were born at home. Were they? Yeah.

47:26What was that like? I always think it's such a brave decision. we actually faye and i tried the home birth first time around and it didn't quite end up like that but it's a brave thing well the first time it it wasn't to do with courage it was to do with circumstances because at that time and wait for me to get to the end and you'll understand i had an mg sports car and um i love this car but it's very low to the ground so we when the whole thing started because it was charlotte's first charge she didn't really quite recognized the signs she decided it was meant she should go and do some gardening so she was out gardening when she suddenly said actually i think something is happening and the midwife came around by which time it was quite on the way and the midwife said can we get in the car and go to the hospital and Charlotte said i am not getting in that car she said well either getting in the car or you're going upstairs so we managed to get her upstairs and she had the baby now as you all have noticed i've slightly truncated the story yeah that's incredible but since she was such a good mother and it was a happy event and the doctor was thrilled because he didn't even have to attend yeah so it was just asking them one midwife yeah wow that's amazing and that gave the confidence to for the next year yeah i mean the home is i never get this story quite right matt so i'm probably in big trouble now i think you've got you've got the broad drift I get the vague idea.

48:53Yeah, that's good. But the home is the backdrop to so many things, and the fact that it can also be the backdrop to a new life arriving into the world, that's actually really quite a profound thing, isn't it? How was it for you, that experience of being in those four walls as your children came into existence? We were very happy there. I don't think I've thought too deeply about it, Matt, actually. It just seemed to work well. And there was another couple up the road, and they had children at the same time. But what I was very aware of is that the street had a rhythm. And the rhythm was a rhythm of children, and then not children, and then children.

49:30So when there were a certain number, they'd play outside because it was a cul-de-sac. Then it would change. But I felt that very, very strongly, that rhythm. Yes, and there was a young couple came and lived opposite towards the end of our time there and had children. So that was an important part of it. I thought of it as a family house, so we could all be together and big enough for all of us. And which has led on to this place, because the family grew, kept growing. Yes, exactly. So you outgrew the house? We outgrew the house, and we also grew close to the limit of our ideas of what we wanted to do in the future, which had always been to, I can illustrate it with an anecdote.

50:15There was a person born on the same day, in the same year, in the same month as myself, who lived nearby. I used to see him walking past every day. And one day it struck me with something you've already realized, that this is me, offensively. A man exactly of my age. And I thought to myself, do I want to end my years here? is there something else we can do and both of us love the countryside and nature is absolutely critical to our work and because of my time at royal academy had come to an end we could suddenly it was possible to move at the same time there were grandchildren arriving and wanted to make a family house where we could live and also somewhere i could work and have studios whereas in Camberwell I had to get on my bike and cycle for some little way yeah and Charlotte was working in the house and she was working in the house which was which she she did wonderfully well at but it wasn't ideal it needed to be that way for for some years for for her to be around but but it was a constraint on her as an artist how does Charlotte feel leaving that place behind then i don't know you you must you must ask her matt except i was was worried going back there i'd feel very nostalgic and i've been back a few times and i don't feel nostalgic at all and i felt something really clearly which is it wasn't our house it's a house what i mean by that is other people who lived there before and other people will live thereafter so although we were briefly in the house the people that came after i felt really pleased because i thought the house would come to life again two little girls there and they were going to do a bit more to the house things that we hadn't got around to or run out of energy in fact one of the things about this house that was most touching meeting a gentleman who used to live here some time ago he came back he said oh i'm really pleased you're here because i think this house is going to be loved again it's an emotional way to put it but it's a real way to put it but i we're going back to the house in love walk i'm i'm happy to see it having another another life yeah i like that you're right it is a rhythm it's a rhythm yeah yeah that's really lovely and also i think houses had more of a rhythm in the past because people not only were born in the houses they died there so there was a sort of depth of human experience in every individual house i'm sure it's absolutely true of this one that i think is not so much the case maybe for for all sorts of reasons i mean it's a morbid question but would you would you have been happy to die there would you been happy to see out your days there or did you know that there was always going to be another home i hadn't really quite thought about it like that but at certain point one does think about these things and i i think let's go back to the let's go back to the blank canvas question i feel at my best thinking forwards and i think in my 60s i felt able to think forwards and now in my 70s i'm able to think forwards and i think i'm the better for it so although the question is a real one you'll notice I haven't answered it.

53:50Yeah, yeah. That's an interesting answer. Because it's such a productive time. Yeah. Do you feel more productive now than at other times? In a very strange way, I feel as productive, if not more productive now, than I did when I was 18. Why is that? I think I'm more, I'm not sure I'm more confident, but I think I'm more able to play. I think, for example, the grandchildren see me as a co-conspirator. in messing around. But I think that's my job. I also think it's my job as an artist to essentially be inventive and to play and to do things for the sake of them. It must bring pleasure, and I hope some sort of insight, but it absolutely must bring pleasure both to me in the doing of it and for you in looking at it.

54:43Without that, I've got absolutely no interest in giving you a little lecture or correcting you on how you think about the world. It has no interest in me at all. In fact, I was reading an interesting philosopher, I was reading recently, who's talking about the necessity of art maintaining privacy. That art isn't about transparency. At a certain point, art is about living with opacity, living with the inability to explain, and that being an entirely virtuous thing that actually gives dignity to the individual. So I think it's an overpowering pressure, particularly on young artists, to say something.

55:29Whereas, in fact, there is nothing to say. Yeah. So getting back to your responsible side, you have held a very responsible post in the world of art. So tell us about that. Was it eight years in post? Yes. So tell us about that. So you're president of the Royal Academy. And how does that come about? That comes about through a very robust democratic system. But in my case, it was a surprise. I wasn't expecting it to happen until somebody said to me, when the president was stepping down, would you consider standing for it, Christopher? And I hadn't really thought about it you have to put yourself up and be voted for in a secret ballot okay by about 80 to 100 people okay and having announced that you're willing to stand you're all in a room together and the round after round after round of voting until there's only one person left so it takes a few hours right how many how many other people were up for it i think there were about maybe about eight or ten of us when we started and they gradually don't get the votes or they agree to drop out because they're not going to get it it's sort of complicated but when i said it's robust democracy it's because every year subsequently technically the same thing happens so they say election of the president the president leaves the room and there's a secret ballot whether they want them back.

57:02So it means if somebody goes rogue or is hopeless, they can be got rid of. But it means all year, you've got that democratic possibility there that you could not be elected. Although in practice, people would tend to say, look, I don't think you're going to get the votes. And best to step down. By the way, that's not why I stepped down. I stepped down because I didn't want to do the full 10 years I think I'd done enough by then So how do you look back on that time? I mean it's obviously an incredible privilege It was an extraordinary privilege And actually I did enjoy the responsibility because I used to enjoy working with the staff and I loved the idea that it was possible to achieve something together with immense difficulties because amongst a group of such people everyone has their own idea everyone's used to being on the studio in the studio on their own but we managed to to get together and do something and how challenging was it at times it was madly challenging it was really really quite tricky but i really believed we could do it and what i'm talking about now is mostly the the big master plan burlington gardens raising i don't know 60 70 80 million pounds all that sort of thing but i think there was a sense i was convinced i was gonna i didn't blink matt i didn't blink and we had wonderful help from people and also i think there was another important sense which was that the royal academy was needed there is a danger when the arts are all publicly funded that everything starts moving down the same route that the museums tend to come to some consensus whereas the royal academy being entirely free of government central funding was free to have its own take on things and i absolutely believe it's amazingly important and there are enough people out there who believe something similar to support the royal academy in that to make sure there wasn't just one dominant institution in the arts in this country but there were several so the different different voices so getting back now to this home that we're in now we're in somerset which is quite different to camberwell quieter quieter definitely you could hear a pin drop outside why here why this area i had a studio in somerset years ago and it was so that i could have a i could get away from the family for say a few days and just concentrate on my work and then go back and well charlotte i'm so grateful for her looking after the john while i did that but it was important for me to get to get on with the work at certain occasions but it turned into a second home and that wasn't the point and the problem with it as a second home was that i had a studio about 60 feet long and the children in charlotte had a room about 12 foot 6 and so i was massively indulgent in my studio space but the family were living in a tiny cramped bit on the end kitchen tucked around the back in a couple of rooms so we took a bit off the studio when i did it and then it was becoming a second home so i sold it and bought my studio in london but it meant that we had very good feelings and memories about somerset okay so we we felt what it was like and also in my background my family come from the new forest and um dorset and hampshire and leamington and all around there so so going west felt much more comfortable for me than going east so this house is what a georgian farmhouse the old bit goes back to mid 16th century that's the that's the kitchen and the fireplace and all that and there was a barn on the end of it and a small dairy building and then this bit was built anything anything from the mid 18th century on i mean broadly georgian and it's just one room thick but it has this very handsome facade which we absolutely loved and which rather reminded us of Love Walk.

1:01:23It's as if Love Walk has been transported and put in the country here, in its own valley. Very much so. Yes, it's symmetrical again, isn't it? It's symmetrical, although the stonemason came and looked at it and he was looking at the facade for the stone. And I was waiting and hoping he'd say something complimentary. He said, faint shade of the workhouse.

1:01:51I think I know what he means. It's plain. I hadn't thought about it like that before. So you're, very sweetly, we had a phone conversation, didn't we, the other day, just deciding what we're going to do today. And you said, look, it's not finished. The house is not finished. Just to let you know, we've only been here two years. We haven't tackled it yet. And in the background, Charlotte said, it's not even started. And I love that. I love that. But what sort of plans have you got for this place? because you've whitewashed it, haven't you? And stripped the carpets out. Yes, yes. You know, sort of taking it back to its bones.

1:02:25And what's going to happen next? Well, there are some odd things here. Where the barn used to be means that there's a run of rooms which are in sequence. And it means you can only get to them from one staircase at one end. And then you have to go through one bedroom and then past another room, another room, to get to the last one. So we need to put a staircase in to get access to the back. and every window in the house has to be replaced, like every window. The roof is held together with sticky and nothing else and it just needs attention, it just needs attention. I think previously all the imagination went into the outbuildings for what was here before and the house was due to be looked at but they didn't get around to it.

1:03:13So I think that's... Were you quite attracted by the idea of sort of rescuing it in a way, or was it more about the fact that you could both have studios on this site? What was the main driver for this particular house? I don't think we were thinking about rescuing. We were thinking about, if anything, rescuing ourselves, because we needed two studios within walking distance of the house. And what was unique about this, that the planning permission already existed, you see, because the houses we've been looking at in other places, you really would be speculating on whether you'd get planning permission, whereas here that wasn't the case.

1:03:52And it meant that almost immediately we could turn one building into Charlotte's studio and then the threshing barn, which has just been completed into mine. And so there was a deliverable sequence of things. And now we're just addressing this. So, yeah, because you started off with the studios, didn't you? that was the most important thing get that sorted yes so tell us about your studio in the threshing barn has that affected your work at all how do you find working in there it's a bit too early to say because i've only been working there for about a couple of months but i think it's going to affect it because of continuity the trouble with having a distant studio is that you have to stop at a certain time go home well that's all that's obvious but that tends to break the rhythm of your thought whereas here potentially if i feel that there's something i i've struck gold as it were i can keep going and keep going and we've even put a little kitchen in down there so i can i can have something to eat and keep keep keep painting do you ever sleep down there no no i used to sleep in the one and the other one but um but you see occasionally that frame of mind where you get into a sequence where you need to keep the thing going is important and through my middle years i didn't allow myself to paint at night because i want to be with family and a lot of artists do get into a pattern and one's imagination does tend to wake up at night so it's a very it's very seductive but at least here i think i've got all the options and in the next 10 years i've got to be as productive as i can be and i think we both agree on that i believe i'm right in saying that you get more productive and creative later in the day is that right is there a sort of warming up period that goes on yes it's the most infuriating thing it's the most absolutely infuriating thing i go in the studio all bright bushy tailed ready to go and will it work no i'm doing stuff i'm looking busy but it's not really what i want so i i have to paint in the morning, I have to paint in the, through the afternoon.

1:06:03By the time I'm getting tired towards the end of the afternoon, the bit that I want, the part of my imagination that interests me, starts to come alive. And the tireder I am, and the hungrier I am, the more it comes alive. It's just maddening. It's just maddening. And it's always been like that. I could change my life and work all night and sleep all day. But for the reasons that we've all been talking about, Yeah, it's not a good idea. And do you listen to music? Yeah, I listen to music. I start off in the morning or bright listening to classical music. As the day goes on, it gets funkier and funkier and funkier.

1:06:42And the painting gets probably better and better. I don't know, but I don't know. It's odd, isn't it? So I'm painting. I'm painting to my... The best music produces the worst painting and the worst music produces the best painting. Come on, so what's bad music? Let's go on, let's tell us how bad are we getting. I'd have to kill everybody in the room if I told you and that would spoil the podcast. But it's to do with rhythm. It's to do with rhythm, actually. Because the beat of classical music is, as it were, upright and steady and complicated. But jazz, really, it's jazz and things like that. and anything with a steady rhythm or a syncopated rhythm somehow just enables me, instead of thinking, what am I doing, to do it.

1:07:32Yeah. And it also helps with colour because the standing on the edge of the pool, shivering in one's bathers is what it feels like most of the time, but suddenly with the music and the rhythm, you're in. Now it's got to be that red. it's got to be that green oh it's that blue surely it's that blue and just do it just do it i'm in the pool okay in the pool and the trouble is a lot of a lot of the one's responses are these weird physical responses to the idea of color the idea of color is a physical response it's more physical than mental if if that makes sense and you feel it in your hands and you feel you feel the impulses to do something or make a mark my pennies are quite big so the physical aspect of what i do is crucial so i think that may explain the annoyingly specific recipe for getting my work towards the end of the day has your approach to color changed as you've got older because the way that you perceive color actually changes doesn't physically

1:08:43i think when i was younger i was so technically aware of tone and hue and pigment and all those things it's like trying to learn to drive a really really complicated car so when you're learning your eyes are everywhere the dashboard that you indicate signal mirror all this stuff and at a certain point the mirror signal indicate i've got that all wrong please don't repeat this um i'm not getting a car good don't i don't you wouldn't want to and but now i i'm just driving i'm just driving and so questions of destination and all of a sudden all gone i'm going to stop this metaphor soon don't worry um but the spontaneity of my response to color is probably greater now than it was when i was younger and i know much frankly i know much more about it and about how the pigments behave and what will work.

1:09:38So lots of people listening to this will be in the creative industry. Some will be artists. Others won't have any particular direct experience of that. How would you describe to someone, and this is quite simplistic, but how would you describe to someone that moved from something figurative, something realistic to your work now, which is very abstracted? How does that come about? And what was that process for you ending up where you are now? That is a really complicated question. I'm going to try and answer it developmentally. God, that sounds pretentious. But what I mean is this. I know I've mentioned this several times.

1:10:18I'm very aware of it in this house, the grandchildren, when they come and stay. So now I'm watching them draw for the first time. And I'm watching them with more. I'm noticing more things I did when I was the parent. so i see the development from only being able to see something in front of their face their mother's face to being seeing something in the room to take an interest in the animals around to then coming to the point at which they start to draw so i'm seeing the develop this developmental stage happening and the developmental stage looks as if it's progressing towards identifiable things people start to have eyes a mouth is trees have leaves and that's that's keeping going like that i'm in reverse my developmental stages are falling off the tree one by one so the point at which i was learning about figurative art and representative art that was why i haven't i got some praise from my parents because i could depict things and that carried on and I learnt all about life drawing and so on and working from observation at the Slade for many years.

1:11:30And my work of the 1980s was essentially like this painting here, had figurative elements in it. But I still feel the main drive of the work isn't necessarily resemblance, it's feeling. Now, resemblance does obviously give you feeling according to what you recognise. but a lot of the painting is rather like an iceberg you see the top of the iceberg but the bulk of the iceberg you're not picking up consciously the form the texture the scale the layers the extent the general rhythm of it these are all things that inform you but they're not necessarily to do with resemblance now although rembrandt puts them all together in the great self-portrait, it's also possible for you to, as it were, strip them out in a great Jackson Pollock or something with its rhythm, which reminds you of powerfully of nature, what it feels like to be in nature.

1:12:33And to be in nature isn't necessarily a thing of resemblance. If we were to go and walk through the woods up there, the complicated perceptions of us walking through that space can hardly be depicted, but it is a reality. And also, you're affected physically by color. You're affected emotionally. If you're very lucky, you can be very moved by color. Not everybody has that capacity. It's not distributed evenly. Some people have it, some people don't. Other people are moved by the word. So I know this is an immensely long answer to your question but it's an immensely complicated and subtle yeah issue but resemblance is a very powerful tool should you require it and it may be within five years i'll come to that again it could well be things tend to cycle i've i've i'm reliving in the work that you've seen today work i was doing in the 1970s all right it's like it's like unfinished business that's come back that's so interesting i wanted to resolve in a more extensive way so if i asked you to look at one of those big canvases in your studio at the moment could you liken it to anything that you've seen well you notice one painting on the end which has an image of the moon at the top yeah so there we are qed yeah and there have been some big paintings i made recently called phases of the moon, which is an image I came from one of my very first oil paintings.

1:14:11And I can remember to this moment the physical feeling of painting the little pale moon on the canvas and popping its reflections below it.

1:14:27Now, I don't know what that is, but for me it's completely compelling. outside of saying anything. You see, a compulsion of interest or curiosity is just as important as a compulsion of significance or meaning. So there's something I've described. That's one feature of the painting. But of course, there are many other things. But in most cases, you can't see a moon. They are just what looks like brushstrokes. Is there something of nature in there? I mean, I know it's a difficult question to answer, but is that, like, just do people look at it and go, oh, that's a thing. That reminds me of that landscape.

1:15:07People tend to do it when you don't want them to. Yeah. There's two big paintings in Liverpool, behind the choir stalls in Liverpool, Anglican Cathedral. And I was talking about how they were made, and there was a man at the front, and he said, can I just ask you something? I said, yeah, of course. He said, you know there's a face in that tree, don't you? i said what he said look look at the trunk of that tree can you see that face i said no he said there is a face and he turned to his other he's turned to his friends you see can you see it and they all said yes but you couldn't no i said it's not there i felt a terrible spoil sport but it really wasn't there but actually the but the positive side of it is it's part of the function of painting to always look like things that's what we do the human mind applies more imagination to what it sees than the checking of facts we fill things out you know i'm looking at you now but my imagination tells me what's behind me yeah yeah so on the same visit someone said about the painting he said um is that the good samaritan i said yeah he said you know that should be a donkey i said what he said it should be a donkey I said, what do you mean it should be donkey?

1:16:24He said the Bible describes it as a beast, as well as a horse. Anyway, we had a bit of an argument. I love my interactions. I must get out more. Nice to get feedback from the customer. So I think the last thing I wanted to ask you really was just about looking back over an incredibly successful career, but also life. You and Charlotte have raised, I'm sure, some wonderful children. You've had some amazing homes that we've discussed today. So many facets to a life. What do you think is going to give you the most satisfaction when you look back over it all? If you could pick something, what would it come down to?

1:17:04Oh, crikey. You've saved this, haven't you? Yeah, yeah, it's not an easy one. Did you always plan to ask this one? Oh, crikey. Satisfaction. I suppose the really tough artists, the really tough, you know, the Dickens and the Tolstoys of this world would say it's the art. but I'm conflicted because it's family too. Has to be the answer. So coming back to the house, the house was designed for us to work but also as a family house. So you see I'm resolving this question with an answer which isn't really an answer but it's a response. It is both though. Yeah, it is. It has to be. But do you know what?

1:17:49I mean, so my father, who died at age 73, 74, something like that. Don't worry me, Matt. I'm 72. I'm sorry. Sorry. You're a lot fitter than he was. I have to tell you that. Can I have a glass of water? I have to tell you that. But I did look at him in the last week of his life, and I spoke to him, and I said to him, your legacy is your son's, is your family. that in the end is what you leave behind. Yes, yes. You know, and actually a lot of us, in a way, are not fortunate enough that we also get to leave a really profound body of work like you have, like a physical object in the world that other people can enjoy that you've created.

1:18:36So that's incredible. I'm glad you said that. I'm a little less conflicted now. Can I have the family? It's all yours. Christopher, thanks so much. I've really enjoyed that. Thank you. And thank you for having us here. Great pleasure. Thank you.

1:19:19many years ago now, but is a great character. And I think it's well worth a look. So do check that out. You can follow us as always on Instagram at The Modern House or my personal account at Matt underscore Gibbard. If you're on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and can spare a moment to leave us a quick review, that will be much appreciated. This episode was produced by Laconic Collective with music by Simeon Walker. Thanks very much, everyone, and talk to you on the next one. Bye for now. Thank you.