Sunday 1 April 2012

Plane bound for Italy, via London, with Stuart Purves to visit Jeffrey Smart in Tuscany, where he has lived for more than four decades. Have thought about making this trip for several months. Jeffrey, who came into both our professional lives—and we into his—profoundly a long time ago, is now in his ninety-first year. Confined to a wheelchair, he seems to have stopped painting, succumbing to the inevitable travails of age; but, judging from faxes and phone calls, his intellect is still sharp, and he doesn’t seem to have lost the desire to work. We hear various reports. About his health. About his willpower. Soon we shall see for ourselves.