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Marian Monas’ Portraits

December 1, 2015
by the gentle author

Marian Monas has been painting her neighbours in Cable St, inspiring Contributing Photographer Sarah Ainslie to visit the subjects and photograph them with their pictures. You can see these paintings in a joint exhibition alongside recent pictures of France by Doreen Fletcher displayed for two days in a floating gallery at Hermitage Moorings, Wapping, this Wednesday 2nd December 10:30-5:30pm & Thursday December 3rd 10:30-7.30pm

Peter Duggan, Waterman & Lighterman

Terry Duncan, Compositor – ‘I lived in Glamis Rd as a child then I grew up and went to live in Dagenham but now I’ve come back to Cable St’

Mary Flanagan, Home Carer – ‘I was born in Wapping and have lived nine years in Cable St. I cared for my mother at home until she was ninety-five.’

Terry Page, West Ham Supporter – ‘I’ve lived forty years in Cable St. I was an electrician at Royal London Hospital then Watney Mann Brewery in Whitechapel and now I do bulk clearance.’

Joe Parker, ex-landlord of the Old House At Home in Watney St

Alicia Morrison, Housekeeper in the West End – ‘I came here from the Philippines thirty years ago and I’ve done a lot of jobs in hospitals and hotels, anything that’s legal’

Harry Parlour – ‘I’m from Bow’

Peter Duggan, Lighterman & Waterman

Photographs copyright © Sarah Ainslie

You may also like to take a look at

A Raucous Party in Shadwell

Chris Kelly’s Cable St Gardeners

6 Responses leave one →
  1. December 1, 2015

    Well done Marian and good luck with the exhibition…

    Happy to have helped in some small way with the project…

    Andy & Shema (THCH)

  2. paris johnson permalink
    December 1, 2015

    It’s all looking very good Marian. Good luck to you both tomorrow. I’m sure it’s going to be a fine and interesting show….especially after judging from your photographs here. 🙂

    Paris x

  3. December 2, 2015

    Well done Marian – it was a great opening and terrific exhibition. Yours and Doreen’s work was wonderful to see in such a setting.

  4. Elizabeth McElwee permalink
    December 22, 2015

    Thank you for sharing Marian, via the site. I thoroughly enjoyed looking at the portraits and photos, and the snippets about the lives of the people chosen. Most ordinary folk don’t have their portraits painted, so I imagine they felt rather special. I hope so!

  5. Marian permalink
    December 23, 2015

    Thanks Andy, Shema, Paris, Steve, Liz – much appreciated!

  6. April 3, 2016

    Love em. Very authentic. Telling the story of real people, so refreshing kin this celeb obsessed world. Saw a nice film where an artist went to a small mid USA town and painted the locals, lovely. No arty farty stuff, just honest picturing, like what Rembrandt done.

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