“My first teacher was my father José Escofet, I am sure it is in large part because I grew up watching him work in his studio that the vague idea of ‘making art’ seemed like a reasonable life path to me.

My father was born near Barcelona in 1930, into a humble working class Catalan family, and like most people of his generation in Spain, he was psychologically scarred by the Civil War and the decades of dictatorship that followed. He was born with a natural talent and passion for art, but never had the opportunity to go to art school, so like most self taught people he became voracious in his research of materials and techniques.

The best thing my father did was marry my mother, she was a Londoner (of Irish stock) who had studied at the Central School of Art in the early 50’s, and set off for Spain some years later.

I grew up in an incredibly multi sensory environment. My earliest memories of childhood are of rummaging through my father’s books with my brother Guillem. Very conveniently for us, the bookshelves in our Barcelona apartment were set just above ground level, giving us full access to a vivid world of fantastical imagery. There were many books, but it was Renaissance ethereal altarpieces, Gothic visions of Heaven and Hell, and examples of Archaic beauty that seared themselves in my imagination, like a sensory explosion in my young being. I think it matters that I digested these images before I could understand them, they were full of magic and mystery and that is still the main quality I am drawn to in art, a sense of awe.

I remember being transfixed watching my father draw, I remember the smell of turpentine and oils, and the sounds of the studio; of pencil on paper; brush on canvas.

My parents collected antique church statuary, ‘tallas’ as they are called in Spain, which are richly expressive carved and polychromed wooden figures of Saints and Madonnas, these were hung all over our home and became like extra presences in our lives. The soundscape of our childhood was Bach, interspersed with Medieval music, occasionally very good jazz, we had countless Deutsche Grammophon records on an equally low level shelf! And of course when we stepped outside there was Barcelona, which itself is a feast for the senses.

We moved to the UK when I was 12. There were many trials and tribulations, and what felt like and endless period of adjustment. My father always had a studio at home and had a golden period of about 20 years of regular solo exhibitions, mainly in New York. At this time he had settled on painting exquisite still life and floral paintings, but he had worked his way through many styles over the years. He was a figurative painter to his core, even when he was experimenting with abstraction in his earlier years.

It’s hard to describe how much I owe my father as an artist, how much I learnt form my him, not didactically but through osmosis. There are the invaluable techniques and understanding of materials, but in some ways the most valuable thing he taught me was how much art matters, for him it was the most noble expression of the human soul.

I eventually studied 3D design at Brighton College of Art, via a Foundation course at Epsom School of Art. At the time I was setting off for art school, most fine art courses were completely conceptually led, and I knew with every fibre of my being that was not for me. I was torn between painting and sculpture, so I settled for a design course that centred around making, figuring that I would at least learn some skills and could take those in any direction I liked afterwards. Even so, the conceptual tenets that had seized fine art courses found their way into design courses too,so my experience of art school was odd. It was impossible for me, given my upbringing, to pretend I was discovering ‘mark making’ for the first time, or that classical art had no place in my inner hinterland. So I shut my mind to a lot of the things that surrounded me, it was my way of preserving my sense of self.

It was not all bad of course, ironically and perversely one could say, we were allowed access to life drawing one day a week, whereas students on the fine art courses weren’t. In fact, my introduction to life drawing came even earlier, on my Foundation course, and I still remember the feeling of utter euphoria at the sense of being able to capture the human form on paper, I have been hooked ever since!

We did also did have some great teachers at Brighton, Sean Hetterley was our ceramic tutor, a wonderfully charismatic and warm personality, who could be very inspirational, his crits were brilliant. He would casually drop pearls of wisdom, I still remember his description of what made Egyptian art so uniquely stylised. He had a great sense of humour, was a brilliant caricaturist, and was the mover and shaker behind the Pottery Party, which was our equivalent of the Chelsea Arts Ball.

I also remember Alma Boyes, who came in as a part time tutor to teach us how to work with plaster, mainly how to make plaster moulds. She was an incredible craftswoman and the techniques she taught us have served me to this day, as I have often cast plaster components for still life elements in my paintings.

But throughout art school and for decades later, it was the example of my father that was my true north star. He was also my best critic; a complete perfectionist, a man of few words and incapable of flattery, I always knew I could count on him to nudge me if he thought something I made was not quite right. He passed away at the end of last year, aged 95. I will forever miss him but I carry him with me in everything I do.”

-Miriam Escofet RP

Jose Escofet, ‘Apple Tree with Toadtools’
Oil on canvas, 114 x 81cm, 1996

Jose Escofet, ‘White Bowl of Lemons’
Oil on canvas, 38 x 30cm, 1995

Jose Escofet, ‘Old Flames’
Oil on canvas, 71 x 61cm, 2005

Miriam Escofet RP, ‘What will survive of us…’
Mixed media drawing over panel,
90 x 80cm, 2023