JIM

MY
AND
BEN

Ben. – Thrilling , isn’t it?

Jimmy. – This picture you mean. Yes, it is. He seems to have treated the sea
like a living creature, and the living figures- these people on the beach for
instance, and the sheep on the hills – simply as decorative things, as dead as
the pebbles or the shells.

Ben. –I agree. It’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything of his that’s impressed
me half so deeply as this. He tends to be a bit academic, generally.

Jimmy. - Who is he? The signature doesn’t mean anything to me.

Ben. – Oh, it’s Peter Kenny. This is his second exhibition and it’s infinitely
better than his previous one.

Jimmy. - it seems pretty impressive to me. I get the impression that he is

obsessed by the sea. At least twenty of these pictures deal with it.

Ben. – Well, he lives in Headby, a little fishing village in Devon. So he’s very
intimately concerned with the sea and its effects on the people he lives
with. As you said a minute ago, he sees it as a living individual, vicious and
gentle, bitter and sweet, generous as a friend but terrible as an enemy.

Jimmy.- Have you ever meet him? I get the impression of a very deep
sympathy between you and him.

Ben. – Yes, there is. I met him originally in Venice in 1957, and we’ve been
friends ever since. We meet pretty regularly; I give him a bed whenever he’s
in this vicinity, and I frequently visit him in Headby.

Jimmy. - I see. How very interesting. Do you think I could meet him?

Ben. - It’s a bit difficult at present. He’s in Italy until Easter. But give me your
address and we’ll fix a meeting when he‘s in England again.