Mr Fish painting

Object location: Outside bedroom

A few years prior to his death, Sangharakshita asked for the folders of oil pastel paintings that he had produced in the early 1970s to be brought out so he could go through them and select the best for framing. (All these brightly-coloured, semi-abstract paintings are now kept in the archive.) He decided to hang one on the wall at the entrance to his bedroom. He referred to this rather whimsical ‘portrait’ as ‘Mr Fish’. 

Sangharakshita had a great love of the visual arts and there was a time when he thought that he, too, might have been an artist. The pastel paintings and drawings were partly inspired by the brightly-coloured, semi-abstract paintings of his friend and fellow Buddhist, German-born Lama Anagarika Govinda (1898–1985).