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Like a good modernist Philipson was never tempted to provide his own analysisof the iconography of his painting; he preferred it to remain enigmatic or to allowthe viewer to respond without didacticism. At the same time he is fearless inencountering the dark side in the human psyche and its endless manifestationsof violence and cruelty, as well as beauty without taking a moral stance; hedepends, as Hall wrote ‘… on a precarious balance between imagery that isreadable to the spectator and the private forms that provide the painters’ ownguidelines to success in any work.’ In 1960 his first wife Brenda Mark died of abrain tumour. This was a traumatic loss, but not the first. Philipson had been onthe edge of a breakdown at the end of the War, isolated from his family in Burma,frequently ill and his younger brother having died in 1943; pain and loss werepowerful creative drivers. He launched himself into work; in 1960 he had the firstof nine one-person exhibitions with Roland Browse and Delbanco in London, thenext year became Head of Painting at The College and within another year waselected a RSA and had remarried, to the painter Thora Clyne.Painting for a Venetian Frame II oil on board 8 x 6 cmsOpposite: Sir Robin Philipson