The folly of ambition

Andrew Lambirth talks to the artist Keith Coventry about drawing inspiration from Sickert, Churchill and Ladybird Books

Keith Coventry has no time to visit the two lap-dancing clubs that lurk a few doors down from his studio, a small room with barred windows in a light-industrial block in the East End. Here, he puts in long hours, often forgetting to eat in his total immersion in the act of putting paint on canvas. He grudgingly admits to being a workaholic.

This is where he painted ‘Spectrum Jesus’, which two months ago won him the £25,000 John Moores Painting Prize, one of the most prestigious accolades in the art world. Winning the John Moores does not guarantee immortality — not much does, except perhaps genius — but it can make a difference. Coventry joins some of the big names of modern British art of the past half-century: Roger Hilton, David Hockney, Euan Uglow, John Hoyland, Peter Doig are all former winners, as well as a number of artists unjustly neglected today, such as Henry Mundy, Myles Murphy and Mick Moon.