Venice, policemen kick painter out of St. Mark's Square. But it was Ken Howard, internationally renowned artist

Singular misadventure in Venice for internationally renowned British painter Ken Howard (London, 1932). The artist, last Saturday, was painting in St. Mark’s Square, but the municipal police forced him to move away: Howard, in fact, would not have had permission to paint under the Procuratie, a place he chose to get to work with canvas, easel, brushes and paints.

Indeed, this year Venice has witnessed a crackdown on activities deemed to be harbingers of degradation, and this summer a “daspo” for the most unruly tourists has also been studied: evidently in Venice even painting is considered a nuisance activity, if the vigilantes felt it necessary to remove an artist who is also a Royal Academician of England, an honorary member of the Royal Society of British Artists, an officer of theOrder of the British Empire since 2010 and was president of the New English Art Club until 2003. In addition, Howard has his own home in Venice where he spends a few months a year, so the painter is now a regular visitor to the city, so much so that he has been portraying the canals and monuments of the Venetian capital for fifty years now.

“Two policemen intervened and told him he could not stay there. He tried to resist, to explain his reasons, but there was no way. They made him get up and told him he had to leave. My husband is 86 years old, so it is a struggle for him to take down the stand and equipment. He was very hurt,” his wife Dora Bertolutti told La Stampa microphones. Incidentally, Ken Howard is used to this modus operandi and that was certainly not the first time he was in St. Mark’s Square painting.

However, the policemen defend their actions, pointing out that it was raining in Venice on Saturday morning and the painter was in the way of those who were passing under the Procuratie to take shelter from the rain. Solidarity comes instead from the April 25 Group, the nonpartisan, civic platform in Venice, which states, “Are we really sure that these are the priorities of a city in disarray like Venice? We express solidarity with Professor Howard, in this climate authors like Guardi or Canaletto would have been forced to emigrate.”

Pictured is a painting with a Venetian subject by Ken Howard.

Venice, policemen kick painter out of St. Mark's Square. But it was Ken Howard, internationally renowned artist

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