Sir Michael Caine in Film, paintings by Paul Karslake FRSA

Last night I was lucky enough to attend the preview evening for Paul Karslake's portraits of movie icon Michael Caine at the London Film Museum. Tying in with the DVD and Blu-ray release of 'Harry Brown' (Lionsgate - 22nd March) there were 6 portraits on display ranging from his latest movie outing to his star-making turn as Harry Palmer. Admittedly I was expecting a larger display, and you'd be right in thinking that it doesn't take that long to peruse 6 paintings, but I did manage to stay interested enough to sink 2 bottles of the free beer. Karslake was in attendance shaking hands, and wearing the 7th transportable portrait - as a waistcoat. As for content Karslake obviously knew what he was doing by picking Caine as his subject, there are few more iconic faces in cinema, especially with the trademark black horned-rim glasses, and the best portrait zeroed straight in on them. Called 'Glasses' (naturally) it's an oddly 3D-esque widescreen slice of Harry Palmer's/Caine's face in semi-profile. Like the others it was on sale and if I had a spare few grand I might have walked out with there and then. The other portraits covered two moments from 'Harry Brown', a brooding Carter ('Get Carter') in front of some tenement houses, Charlie Croker yelling in Arthur's face after blowing up the van in 'The Italian Job', and a brown-hued picture of what Karslake has titled "Alfie". Great painting, and I'm not usually one to disagree with an artist's output, but I'm fairly sure we were actually looking at a certain Mr H. Palmer in "Billion Dollar Brain"... If you get the chance to see them you can judge for yourself. Paul Karslake's paintings will be on display from Wednesday 24th March at Art You Grew Up With, London Film Museum, County Hall, Belvedere Road, London SE1 7PB for 1 week only.