Fagin by Steven Ponsford

Brilliant - just as I imagined him to be - jolly scary as well. You've done a great job with this portrait and definitely cracked the wrinkles and ravaged look.

Fantastic Steven! The eyes are incredible.

Absolutely brilliant. If this doesn't become this month's choice by POL then something's wrong. He's just so full of character

The big problem with painting Fagin (or Shylock) is how to do it without descending into anti-Semitic imagery. Indeed, Dickens himself, I understand, wrestled with this, and was very upset when Fagin was represented as typically Jewish. And yet, I'm a huge admirer of Dickens - and of the Jewish people: and to me, Fagin was presented in that great novel as a real human being, not as a monster. People just read the surface; there was so much more going on beneath it. And I think the same of this painting - you've got a bad lad, but a human being. Anyone who could read the last chapter of Oliver Twist without feeling huge compassion for Fagin just hasn't understood the book at all,in the slightest degree, in any way.

Stunning portrait Robert