The Artist
by Philip Hoare

At Batsford's gallery in May 1945, Dirk Bogarde and his wartime companion Christopher Greaves exhibited watercolours they had made during the Allied advance in Europe. The title was 'With the BLA' (the British Liberation Army), and The Times, reviewing this show of 'men-at-arms and men-of-arts', remarked that Captain Derek Van den Bogaerde (as he was then) 'seems to think principally in watercolour, which he uses very effectively'. Every painting was sold and vanished into private hands, except one which is held by the British Museum.

Until his death it was presumed that very little had survived of Bogarde's early art. However, when his estate gave permission, first, for an official biography and then for a two-part BBC TV documentary, a small green sketchbook was discovered among his few surviving papers. It contained pen-and-ink sketches he had made in 1941, two years after he had left art school. They provided visual evidence of an extraordinary talent.

Born in 1921, Bogarde inherited his sense of the theatre from his 'very beautiful' mother, Margaret.