Wit of a hunter-gatherer

Over the years Chris Beetles must have made the pencil-wielding fingers of Quentin Blake and Ronald Searle itch with a desire to draw him. He presents a vigorously compact figure, possesses a pair of appropriately beetling brows sheltering an extremely shrewd gaze and sports an unabashedly splendid set of bugger’s grips. Standing in the doorway of his gallery on Ryder Street in the heart of art-dealing London, both he and his collection are a world away from the smooth-talking, sharp-suited power-broking of Christie’s and Sotheby’s, the plush hush of Colnaghi.

The walls of the gallery bristle with pictures, hung to fill every possible available space from floor to ceiling. Rowlandson rubs along happily with Brabazon, Edward Lear with Mervyn Peake, Quentin Blake with Ronald Searle. Large blue folders labelled alphabetically lie on shelves, filled with more treasures from Ardizzone to Zinkeisen. The order and profusion betray a certain element of obsessive hunter-gathering.