Molayem ART Magazine International Art Magazine
Painter, printmaker and collagist known for his extraordinary breadth of involvement in the arts
Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian
In 1966, the artist Tom Phillips, who has died aged 85 after a long illness, walked into a junk shop on Peckham Rye in south London and bought a novel called A Human Document by the Victorian writer William Hurrell Mallock.
The choice of book was random. “I’d decided it should the first one I picked up that cost thruppence, and this one did,” Phillips recalled in an interview to mark his 75th birthday in 2012. “It also had the most striking title – it leapt out at me. There was a witness, [the painter] Ron Kitaj, but sadly he has died. He said: ‘Well, this one costs thruppence, Tom. Here it is. You’d better get it.’” Phillips paused. “He didn’t live to see the end, alas.”
