My friend John Makepeace, who has died aged 87, was an expert picture framer who, with his wife, Daphne, worked for many of London’s top galleries as well as a number of private clients. His framing scattered fairy dust over a painting – a form of alchemy that took the eye to what was important in the picture. Framing for him was not a job – it was a way of life.
John was born in Margate, Kent, to Ella (nee Everett) and Arthur, who ran a shop in central London repairing and dealing in clocks. After the second world war the family settled in Edgware, Middlesex, where John went to various secondary schools, after which he became an apprentice dental-technician, working at dental practices around London. He did national service later than was normal, at the age of 21, spending two years (1956-58) in Malaya.
Back in London in the late 50s he returned to his previous line of work at various dental studios across London, while taking evening classes at St Martin’s School of Art. He eventually fetched up in Hampstead, where he met Daphne (nee Looker), who was running a picture framing business there. With their shared interest in boats, dogs and craftsmanship they became lifelong, devoted partners and also decided to go into business together, travelling round London to deliver their frames to art galleries on the roof of a bubble car with the first of their many rescue dogs, Dillan, at their side.
Their expanding business took in workshops from Notting Hill to Camden and Borehamwood, before eventually they based themselves in a house they had bought on the Norfolk/Suffolk borders, from where they made frequent business trips into London. Their area of expertise was the framing of modern British art from the inter-war period, with John and Daphne doing the framing for many art businesses, including the Pyms gallery, Michael Parkin, the Fine Art Society and my own gallery, Sally Hunter Fine Art. But they didn’t just do framing, and one of their biggest commissions in the 1990s was the restoration of a huge mural for the renovated John Lewis store in Bristol, where it can still be seen.
A man of kindly disposition, John found it difficult to say no. The resultant pressure of work closed down their boating holidays in Kent and East Anglia, and reduced trips to Daphne’s seriously unmodernised cottage in Wales. The many trips in and out of London eventually took their toll and so they bought a flat in Fulham in 2000 before retiring together in 2010, switching the focus of their social lives to the Hurlingham yacht club in Putney.
John and Daphne were married in 2000. Daphne died in 2017, after which John took their dilapidated boat out of storage and devoted his final years to its restoration.
