They may not realise it, but Rosamond and Ben Brown make an entertaining double act. The mother-and-son duo have made art their life’s work, and where their tastes converge, trouble ensues. As our photographer asks the pair to pose at Ben’s house in London’s Notting Hill, 88-year-old Rosamond suddenly spots something she likes.
“I love the Tony Bevan,” she says, noting the piece by the prominent British artist above the mantle. “Have you got a spare one for me, for my new flat?”
When her son pretends he doesn’t hear, she tries again. “Ben. Have you got any good Tony Bevans for me?”
The badinage between the two (or lack of, in this case – “He’s stingy,” she later jokes) isn’t just evidence of how intertwined their lives still are, but also of how prolific the Browns are as collectors.
Rosamond, an artist herself, was one of the pioneers of Hong Kong’s modern art scene, holding solo shows at the city’s first permanent exhibition space in the 1960s, and forging close relationships with its most important artists, including Gaylord Chan Yu-sang and Hon Chi-fun, both of whom, it turns out, owed her a debt of gratitude for introducing them to acrylics.
“They were thrilled to meet me because I’d started using these new paints – paints that you could use in a humid climate,” she recalls. “An oil painting in that climate … I tried it. You had to have 10 paintings on the go, it was a week before they dried.”