Lucy Dickens – Artist In Love with London

LUCY DICKENS –   GREAT-GREAT GRAND DAUGHTER OF THE ‘INIMITABLE’ CHARLES, A LONDON PAINTER WHO LOVES TO TAKE A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES

Lucy Dickens calls herself ‘a people watcher,  a nosey parker with a vivid imagination’ . As a true Dickensian, she observes and records London life, with a gently satirical take on her subjects.  She loves the glitter and the gold of grand hotels, especially the Ritz, Piccadilly,  where the waiters,  the porters and the barmen quietly attend to the orders of lipsticked blue-lidded ladies in body- con frocks, blow dries and high heels.  Palace hotels and fancy restaurants are ‘wonderful stages’ she says, ‘full of pomp and circumstance, costumes, uniforms and old traditions enacted daily as the guests come and go.’

Lucy Dickens began her career as a full-time artist in 1990.  After a spell as fashion stylist for Conde Nast,  she became a freelance illustrator, working for the Financial Times,  Vogue, Brides, Harpers Bazaar and Tatler.

She began to paint while writing and illustrating a series of children’s books.  Her particular gift is to convey the spontaneity of the scene before her.   That edgy Mayfair glamour that she knows so well from years working in Berkeley Square, informs her work.