Chelsea Arts Club, since its founding in 1891 by James Whistler and his friends, has been the place to meet the bohemians of London.
I do not remember exactly what had happened during the day, but it had been a tiring one, and we’d gone at the end of it to this particular club to relax. We sat at a large oval table made of dark wood, with three wax candles burning in the middle, while next to us a black musician with long fingers and a profile like Pericles was playing the piano – perhaps it was ‘Round Midnight’ by Thelonious Monk, but perhaps not.
At the dinner we talked about how passion should fill every moment of existence, and tasted Muscat from Beaumes de Venise, which Andrew had ordered.
Suddenly I asked Andrew if I could take photographs of him and he smiled in agreement. Our session lasted just a few minutes, but when we returned to our fellow guests, the pianist was already playing something else or maybe he was improvising, as we’d done a short time before.
Andrew Brown is a founder of iconic art gallery 369 in Edinburgh and also a painter himself