City Dogs

Initialled original pastel.

‘John Farrington saw things in a very particular way. He didn’t make judgements. That led to some extraordinary pieces of art, and sometimes great difficulties for him too. He had grown up on a farm and was a great lover of animals. He couldn’t stand the idea of dog fighting, for example, and yet near where he lived he found there was a dog fighting circle, so he went there one day to record it. He painted it so well, in fact, that he was immediately accepted by the group of men who were staging the contests. They thought he was one of them, and soon tried to commission their own prize-fighter portraits.’ – Mike Goldmark