Oil on canvas

This painting was given by the artist as a gift to the Lord Mayor of Plymouth, but it was promptly returned after the subject matter was understood. Lenkiewicz said of 'The Bishop in 1997: "He’d arrange himself as neatly as a parson when he sat down saying, 'Always keep the creases in your trousers. Don’t shit ‘em or that’ll have the creases out!' He’d say it almost like clockwork as he folded himself up, even if he was only sitting down for a minute."

[From R.O. Lenkiewicz, 1997] "It’s very true to say that I would form deeper relationships with some of the ‘cowboys’, dossers, alcoholics, vagrants, call them what you will, than with others. There is something about some of them that is similar to St. John in the desert, a character who interests me more than Jesus. There is something about the desert father, this notion of 'acidia', of not looking to the horizon and not needing to be distracted.