I went to visit Ian McKeever, an artist whose work I have long admired, long before I knew him at the RA and before I read his writings on art when I was at the National Gallery. But I had never been to his studio, deep in the deepest Dorset countryside, somewhere near Shaftesbury, where he produces work which it is easier to understand when seen in situ, produced in an atmosphere of the utmost calm and long spells of working on series of abstract works, which are like musical performances, layers of single colours in veils of paint and clouds.

I had only half known, and greatly admired, the way the work is informed by his knowledge of Old Master painting, including a series of gouaches which work with, and in doing so interpret, images of historical portraits:-