Local estate agent to host eclectic art show in aid of Marie Curie Hospice and the Hampstead Arts Festival

Ham & High: The Bearded ObserverThe Bearded Observer (Image: Archant)

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that “every artist was once an amateur.” The poet and essayist was not himself an artist, but then you needn’t be a professional to catch the eye of a buyer.

Jeremy Karpel knows that; the director of TK International Estate Agents will be holding an art show on 21st June on Redington Road. The proceeds of sales will go to the Hampstead Arts Festival of which TK International is a sponsor, and Marie Curie Hospice in Lyndhurst Gardens of which Karpel is a development board member.

Ham & High: T.E. Lawrence Entering DamascusT.E. Lawrence Entering Damascus (Image: Archant)

Karpel trained as a film set designer and went on to work at Warner Brothers on films like ‘A View to a Kill’ before moving on to join Goldschmidt and Howland when the industry took a dip, eventually posting his drawings on Facebook. “I’ve stayed in the industry and I’ve never moved on,” he explains, “but I was always a very frustrated artist.”

Karpel’s keen interest in film and history has translated into his sketches, which he says he often completes whilst on the phone negotiating. “I sit there and I doodle,” he says. “Some people draw millions of boxes with dots in them, I draw things like that and that’s how I express myself.”

One of his sketches depicts the barricades of Paris during the 1848 February Revolution where fighting erupted between Parisians and the municipal guards and eventually led to the toppling of the Orleans monarchy to create the Second Republic. Another demonstrates the capture of Damascus in 1918 by T.E. Lawrence, the inspiration behind the 1962 film ‘Lawrence of Arabia’.

Karpel hopes that the event will allow him a creative outlet and let people see him in a different light. “You should never judge a book by its cover…This is quite a nice platform to show there’s another string to my bow and hopefully in a nice environment where other people benefit.”

The self-taught artist is hosting the premier showcase of his art at the home of friend, actor and local politico Tom Conti. The Wabe on Redington Road just off Hampstead Heath is an excellent choice of one-time gallery, already full to the brim of the artworks of Kara Conti whose colourful portraits deck the halls lining the stairwell.

The Wabe was designed in 1903 by William Garnett, inspired by Lewis Carroll’s 1871 novel ‘Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There’. With a minstrel’s gallery and impressive window feature, the double height grand ballroom is the perfect place to host the estate agent’s works, accompanied by the tinkling fingers of regular Joe Allen pianist Clifford Slapper.

It will also be a prime opportunity for the Contis to draw attention to their property, which is on the market with London Real Estate Advisors for £15 million. The home has struggled on the market in the last two years due to the imposition of higher levels of stamp duty which came into effect in April last year. Karpel advises that enquiries are welcome to go through him even though not directly instructed.

The artist-come-agent, who founded TK International in 1998 hopes to raise a few thousand for Marie Curie Hospice on Lyndhurst Gardens in Hampstead that looks after terminally ill patients.

Prices will range from £95 to around £375 for his eclectic range of small ink and pencil sketches.

“They’re not thousands of pounds,” he says, “I’m not a famous person. I’m just a guy trying to raise a bit of money for a good cause.”

Attendance is invite-only, and with Tom and Kara Conti’s address book the agent indicates the audience might include some famous faces, which he hopes will bring in donations. “It should be quite an eclectic, fun, interesting Hampstead night,” says Karpel.