Notes

The boy in the painting is the artist’s second son, Boris, affectionately known as Bo. He suffered from severe autism and was locked into a world of his own, but he loved the circus and his parents would take him and his older brother whenever the circus was in town. In the present lot, the boy is shown in a harlequin’s chequered costume, reaching out to the real world but also the fantasy world of the circus. Sadly, Bo died of a brain tumour when he was seventeen years old.