Christo and Anna

Christo and Anna at home. Christo, white-haired, in glasses and a green shirt, sits barefoot in a wooden chair on the left with a laptop on his knees. Anna, white-haired, in a pale blue shirt, sits on a dark blue sofa on the right with papers in her lap and a newspaper beside her. Between them a red and blue patterned carpet, two tall sash windows with wrought iron railings and trees beyond, a chest of drawers, a yellow chair, pictures on the walls, a fireplace with photographs on the mantelpiece, and shelves of books on the right.

This is the portrait I carried across town on Thursday, rolled in a tube. Christo and Anna Hird, at home.

In August I had a show of portraits at Burgh House in Hampstead. Christo came with Anna, recognised some faces on the walls, and afterwards asked if I would make a picture of the two of them. At the end of August I went to see them, and I made this over the weeks that followed, from sketches done in the room and from photographs.

The room gave me a lot to work with. There is art on the wall, which pleased me, a carpet with a wonderful bright pattern, and a big, busy wall of books, which filled me with excitement and dread in equal parts: which titles to pick out and letter in? And outside the windows, wrought iron railings, which I hadn’t expected to find so exciting to draw.

Most of all there was the question of how to draw the two of them. Looking at each other? At the viewer? One at the other? Christo was working on his laptop while I was there, so that’s how I drew him, looking just off, mid-thought.

Detail: Christo in a wooden chair, laptop on his knees, looking just off to one side, with the railings' scrolling rose pattern in the window behind him, a television and two pictures on the wall, and the red carpet underfoot.

Anna looks straight out.

Detail: Anna on the dark blue sofa, looking straight out, papers in her hands and a newspaper beside her. Behind her, bookshelves with spines lettered in by hand, among them Murdoch, Zadie Smith and Le Carré, and the window with the railings and a yellow chair beneath it.

As in most of my portraits, the room is squashed. It’s something like a 180-degree view compacted into one picture, so you see walls that couldn’t be seen from any one spot.

The print is A2, with a white border, and it comes with a certificate of authenticity and a small booklet of photos from the sitting. What with one thing and another – people being busy, me not being able to make it, printers not delivering on time – the handover took longer than I’d hoped.

But on Thursday I took it round. Christo was on the phone when I arrived, and Anna was keen to see it. Shall we wait for Christo, I said. So we waited, and then we unrolled it. “The colours are wonderful,” Anna said. We looked through the booklet, turned back to the portrait, found some of the book titles I’d lettered onto the shelves, and they talked about where it would go when it’s framed.

I’d brought a pencil, in case they wanted anything added to the inscription. They didn’t, so it stayed in the envelope.

Christo said I should go ahead and show the picture, because it might encourage somebody else to commission one. If that’s you, jp at this domain name.

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