Night on Mare Street

(Pig’s Ear at the Old Temperance Hall, Hackney)

At the Ocean Leisure centre on Mare Street in Hackney the faithful are gathering. In this Old Temperance Hall the annual Pig’s Ear beer festival has commenced. Beer and cider from every corner of the British Isles are there to be sampled. This is my first London painting for some time and I’m trying to find some way of blending back in after being away. It’s a celebration of this country and its traditions and the note on the bottom right is the quotation from William Hogarth’s Beer Street:

Beer, happy produce of our isle

Can sinewy strength impart

And wearied with fatigue and toil

Can cheer each manly heart.

Genius of health

They grateful taste rivals the cup of Jove

And warms each generous English breast with liberty and love.

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