Minette y Benoit

This was based on a portrait from my favourite Brassai book of photographs, 'The Secret Paris of the 30s' from which I've done a number of pieces. Benoit was a homeless man who lived next to the Seine, under the arches of the Pont Neuf. Benoit, as Brassai came to know him, lived with his girlfriend Doudou and their cat Minette. Doudou was too suspicious of strangers – street people in Paris at that time were routinely run off or harrased by the police – to let herself be photographed but Minette the cat was friendly.
This is me in early watercolour days, first a practice and then a more 'finished' painting. I like the first one better for its spontaneity. Watercolour, pen and ink