I am always in two minds about Ayrton, neither of them very positive. His line is superficial, his command of tone limited, and he demonstrates a great sense of self-importance, as if the act of making myths visible lends mythologic overtones to his own aesthetic significance. I find myself responding to a temporary hardness of surface when his admiration for Wyndham Lewis stiffens his backbone. Every now and then however a drawing appears, such as the two women in the bottom row, when creates something original in intensity, albeit a conscious nod to Fuseli whose works were fashionable in the late 1940's.

I put together a large collection of Ayrton material before suddenly realising that the more I had, the more the totality diminished.

The Unfortunate Traveller or The Life of Jack Wilton.Qui audiunt audita dicunt.Tho. Nashe.London. Printed by T. Scarlet for C. Burby, & are to be sold at his shop adjoining to the Exchange. 1594.

exhibition at Austin / Desmond