Anthony Christian

"I paint for many reasons; one of them is to educate, and I hope by the beauty and integrity of my work that I may teach people the difference between pornography and great Art, and shatter the last shackles bonding those imprisoned by ignorance or hypocrisy."
Anthony Christian

English artist Anthony Christian (24 October 1945 - present) showed talent at an early age. At only 10 years of age, Anthony Christian was granted the privilege of studying the techniques of the Old Masters at the National Gallery in London. To this day, no other artist under the age of eighteen has been permitted to copy there. Throughout his time at the National Gallery and for a further seven years Anthony studied at length the works of Rubens and Rembrandt as well as other Old Masters. The accolade of publicity he received during this period, announced him as a child prodigy.
He began his career as a portrait artist painting the portraits of the rich and famous including Lord Mountbatten of Burma, Baroness Olympia de Rothschild, Baroness Fiona Thyssen-Bornemisza, Count Guido di Carpegna, Lord Lichfield, Blake Edwards, Julie Christie and Terence Stamp, and his work is featured in many prestigious private collections including that of HRH Elizabeth II who owns one of his portraits of Lord Mountbatten.
In 1968, he created his first erotic series, a collection of 24 sanguine drawings. They were originally intended for his private collection though when erotic art collector Alain Kahn-Sriber heard about them while in Paris he flew over to see them at Christian's London home and bought 3 for his collection.

Then in 1969, John Coast, a top London impresario bought 3 more. Later in 1969, Victor Lownes, Hugh Hefner's partner in Playboy, saw the rest and liked them so much he bought the lot. Victor gave two of them to Hugh and kept the rest for his own collection.

Despite the obvious popularity of his erotic work, Christian kept his erotic paintings and drawings private for the following three decades. Occasionally, he would make one of his erotic paintings public though would attribute the painting to one his students, either Julia Cuddlewell or Honey Potter. It wasn't until the late 1990s when Anthony Christian began to show his collection of erotic art publicly.

During this time, Christian began focusing more on erotic art, in particular erotic surrealism. He also began his series of erotic paintings known as The LillyEgg Collection, a series of Old Master paintings repainted with an erotic theme intended to help the world realize the beauty of Erotic Art, and also a tribute to the great Masters who have inspired him.

Studies of Kim, 1983, Anthony Christian

Birth of the Lilly and the Egg

"Dipingo per molti motivi, uno dei quali è quello di educare, e spero che per la bellezza e l'integrità del mio lavoro che io possa insegnare alla gente la differenza tra pornografia e grande arte, e frantumare le ultime catene che legano quelli imprigionati per ignoranza o ipocrisia ".Anthony Christian.