Welcome to the Gallery Blackfriars Bridge - London Houses & interiors Portraits Home← →About Siena " I grew up in Siena and have known it all my life - Sophie visits and captures the soul of Siena in her drawings" ❦ Mark Getty

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SOPHIE MORTIMER Visual diarist & reportage artist ❦ Sophie Mortimer works as a visual diarist and reportage artist whose chief interest is catching the spirit of a place — and doing so at speed. Trained in Illustrative Art at Camberwell School of Art, she works in pen, ink, gouache and watercolour, painting rapidly and boldly so that movement and atmosphere flow freely through her work. Working always from the sketchbook, she has painted widely across the Italian regions of Tuscany, Istanbul, Zanzibar, East Africa and Moscow as well as closer to home, her eye moving easily between the sweep of a landscape and the intimate detail of figures and faces. Her paintings hang in many private collections, among them those of Sir Tom Stoppard, the Getty family, and the late Lord Lambton and the American ambassador Robert Tuttle. She is much in demand as an illustrator, her commissions including the cover paintings for the reissue of the much- loved Miss Read novels, House and Garden, The Field etc. Sophie also was a regular contributor to World of Interiors and Country Homes and Interiors. Gallery← About Sophie “Time never stands still. I work rapidly, catching a fleeting glimpse before the moment moves on — so, unlike a camera, my drawings are never quite finished. That movement is the point: it gives me a certainty in an uncertain world. My conversation pieces catch people mid-glimpse. We are never static.” -Sophie Mortimer →Commissions →Commissions Gallery← “Time never stands still. I work rapidly, catching a fleeting glimpse before the moment moves on — so, unlike a camera, my drawings are never quite finished. That movement is the point: it gives me a certainty in an uncertain world. My conversation pieces catch people mid-glimpse. We are never static.” -Sophie Mortimer SOPHIE MORTIMER Visual diarist & reportage artist ❦ Sophie Mortimer works as a visual diarist and reportage artist whose chief interest is catching the spirit of a place — and doing so at speed. Trained in Illustrative Art at Camberwell School of Art, she works in pen, ink, gouache and watercolour, painting rapidly and boldly so that movement and atmosphere flow freely through her work. Working always from the sketchbook, she has painted widely across the Italian regions of Tuscany, Istanbul, Zanzibar, East Africa and Moscow as well as closer to home, her eye moving easily between the sweep of a landscape and the intimate detail of figures and faces. Her paintings hang in many private collections, among them those of Sir Tom Stoppard, the Getty family, and the late Lord Lambton and the American ambassador Robert Tuttle. She is much in demand as an illustrator, her commissions including the cover paintings for the reissue of the much- loved Miss Read novels, House and Garden, The Field etc. Sophie also was a regular contributor to World of Interiors and Country Homes and Interiors. About Sophie Jumpers, West End "The drawings are fabulous and I had to buy this one. It's of the theatre showing a production of one of my plays" ❦ -Tom Stoppard

Enquire Sophie First name* Last name Email* Phone What would you like painted?* Tell me more about the subject* Where are you based?* Preferred size* Preferred date and time Day Month Year Time : Hours Minutes Send enquiry Commissions← A 50% deposit is required to confirm your commission. I accept bank transfer and card payment. →The World of Miss Read Cetinale, near Siena "I want that drawing you are doing of Cetinale - just like it is." ❦ Clare and Tony Lambton

Sophie Mortimer Bloomsbury based artist "Commissions taken for houses, portraits including pets and really anything" I prefer to visit you to make preliminary drawings. I draw from life, I then work up the drawing in my studio and present you with the final artwork. COMMISSION NOW → Stone Hall, Pembrokeshire "I saw the drawing and loved it at once - it could only be this house - Sophie has caught the spirit and wildness of the place absolutely" ❦ -Francis Fry I. THE VISIT I visit to get a greater knowledge and feel for the subject. II. THE Studio In my studio I work the drawings up and add the finishing touches iII. THE delivery "When I deliver the completed work I also give you the preliminary drawings →Gallery

How a commission works I. THE VISIT I visit you to get a feel and understanding of your loved one - this could be your home, your dog, yourself. I make initial drawings and take those back to my studio. II. THE Studio I work up the drawings in my studio next to the British Museum using the atmosphere of the subject's natural habitat. iII. THE delivery Every mark I make from the first line to the finished artwork comes home to you. Houses & interiors A portrait of your home, or of a room, bar, or place that matters to you. Painted from sketches made on my visit — the way the light actually falls, the details a photograph flattens. "House in Bloomsbury c.1720" Types of commission Dogs & other pets Dogs are drawn in the same approach, or for the other member of the household. I sketch your dog at home — relaxed, natural, themselves — and paint the portrait in the studio. "Blossom The Löwchen" Types of commission Recommended option More room to breathe — ideal for a hallway, living room, or as a significant gift. Includes: Home visit & sketching session / Original watercolour /All preliminary sketches / Delivered to your door A3 · 30 × 42 cm — £550 The perfect size for a sideboard, mantelpiece, or gift. Includes: Home visit & sketching session / Original watercolour/ All preliminary sketches / Delivered to your door A4 · 21 × 30 cm — £350 Pricing A4 · 21 × 30 cm — £350 The perfect size for a sideboard, mantelpiece, or gift. Includes: Home visit & sketching session / Original watercolour/ All preliminary sketches / Delivered to your door A3 · 30 × 42 cm — £550 Recommended option More room to breathe — ideal for a hallway, living room, or as a significant gift. Includes: Home visit & sketching session / Original watercolour / All preliminary sketches / Delivered to your door About← *Prices apply to house, interior, and dog commissions alike. A 50% deposit is required to secure your commission, with the balance due on completion. Commissions are taken in order of enquiry. →Enquire now "The drawing that Sophie created of my house, for me captures its essence and it hangs in pride of place in the main drawing room." ❦ Rupert Legge Hamswell House, Somerset

The World of Miss Read ❦ PRINTS AVAILABLE ON SOPHIE'S ETSY SHOP Enquiries← →Archive Sophie Mortimer has long been in demand as an illustrator, with work commissioned for Country Life, The Field, The World of Interiors and many more. Among her best-loved work is her cover art for the paperback editions of the Miss Read novels, published by Orion Books — the enduringly popular chronicles of English village life written by Dora Saint under the pen name Miss Read. First published in 1955 with Village School, Miss Read's novels went on to sell in their millions, following the fictional villages of Fairacre and Thrush Green through decades of gentle, wry, deeply loved storytelling. Sophie's covers, still gracing the books in print today, capture exactly the world those novels conjure — hedgerows and village greens, schoolrooms and vicarages, a England quietly disappearing even as it was being written about. Sophie was commissioned by the publishers Orion books, of the Miss Read series of books to provide the cover drawings for 23 books in the series. These books with her drawings have been continuously in print since 2005. They are now available also as audio books. Sophie made numerous versions before settling on the finished work. She has sold a number of the originals following her exhibition at the Walk Gallery.