by Professor J. G. P. Delaney, Ph.D.

Philpot’s intuitive love of metaphor made him prefer the rather objective, narrative and personal drama of Christianity, while Heard’s more transcendent and psychological approach eventually found its home in Indian mysticism.

This hitherto unknown and unpublished memoir of the English artist Glyn Philpot (1884-1937) by the philosopher and mystic Gerald Heard (1889-1971) gives a vivid and eloquent description of both the man and the artist. Philpot’s tact, his personal charm and his engaging conversation are depicted as well as his great gifts as an artist, his manual dexterity and his concern with both meaning and with surface quality in painting. However, it was Philpot’s personality, which according to Heard was greater than the artist, that made him one of the most remarkable people that Heard had ever known. His account gives us a sensitive and well-rounded view of Philpot’s character.