I’ve never found it a problem that his ‘figural vocabulary’ is informed by sense of evil, though I’d argue with the idea that it remains resolutely binary. Clearly no portrayal of virtue is likely to be unbesmirched by badness but I think this goes back his realism. We live in a world in which wrongdoers of every stripe appear on our televisions every night, trying to present themselves as virtuous people and to spin the inherent rectitude of of what they’re saying and doing. Peter Howson’s paintings have always refused this kind of distortion of public conversation. Tacitly or explicitly. This seems to be the binary division that drives his work – not some internal balancing of figurative intention.

So that’s what I’ve always enjoyed about his work. It’s truer than the pretend virtue of public life. It’s more powerful than disingenuous PR spin. It’s better for us than lying politicians. This, effectively, IS the virtue in Howson’s paintings. What not to look for is a fully realised depiction of the irrevocably redeemed, virtue shining out of it like a glowing smile in a toothpaste commercial. That could work as satire, of course, but it’s not really what Howson’s paintings are about.