Writing

Mooching around a gallery is my favourite way to spend an afternoon and writing a novel set in the art world gave me carte blanche to visit every exhibition and pore over enormous art books.

I had seen Barbara Hepworth’s retrospective at the Tate Modern in 2015 and something about the small scale and smooth surface of her sculptures that lodged in my brain. From doves to amorphous marble shapes, they were all eminently strokable and portable enough to carry home.

Once I discovered that Hepworth was a working mother and had been abandoned, albeit briefly, by her partner after giving birth to triplets, I was captivated.

It was the 1930s and they were in an open relationship.  Barbara had been married before, and perhaps she had an inkling that he would return to his wife and children in Paris.

She was alone with three babies in a basement with a cracked window and a dodgy boiler. How did she even find time to brush her teeth let alone sketch or paint?Her talent and strength in adversity astonished me. 

I set the action of Painting by Numbers in the 1970s, when Women’s Lib was a nascent force to be reckoned with, the pill was available, women could get their own credit cards and Shirley Conran pronounced that life was too short to stuff a mushroom. It should have been easier to be an female artist.

Margot, the wife and mother in my novel, has managed to create intricate pictures in tiny increments of time - while trying her best not to overshadow her husband. But when her talent is recognised, their family life implodes.