A portrait of rare books dealer Tim Bryars of Bryars & Bryars features in the Royal Society of Portrait Painters’ Annual Exhibition.
The pencil drawing is the work of artist Emma Wesley, who had her first portrait of an antiques dealer mentioned by ATG in 2004. She is the wife of Mark Sullivan, another antiques dealer, who has a shop in Cecil Court next door to Bryars & Bryars.
“Tim and I have been talking about doing a portrait for years, and the sketch is a preparatory drawing for a painting in which maps, books and other objects will feature,” Wesley says. “I’ve always loved painting people with the tools of their trade, or with objects they collect, and I think antique and antiquarian bookshops, particularly the ones in Cecil Court, are perfect expressions of their proprietors’ personalities.”