Some of the graves had really nice headstones or sculptures with a story behind them. George Wombwell, the man buried in the tomb in the photograph below, was a Victorian menagerie exhibitor. One of his most famous animals was Nero the lion, who was so tame that children could ride on his back. A statue of him was placed on top of the tomb and the fact that he is sleeping represents his calm, gentle nature.
In the East cemetery I visited Karl Marx's grave (it's impossible to miss) as well as Douglas Adams' (which I did miss the first time round - it's rather small).
After visiting Highgate cemetery I went and visited the Syd Barrett 'Art and Letters' Exhibiton at the Idea Generation Gallery (nothing to do with my art project). It was interesting to see a side of Syd that not many people know about. I didn't actually realise he painted until I read about this exhibition on the Planet Rock website, where I first learnt about it. I have to admit that I didn't like a lot of the art, but I did really like these two (Untitled 6 and Untitled 7):
They also had some of Storm Thorgerson's photography featured in the gallery and I actually cannot express in words how much I love his work. When Borders was around I used to just go in there, get the big book on Thorgerson's album covers down from the top shelf and sit down and just marvel over his work.
This is a photograph that I had not seen before. Thorgerson has the most wonderful ideas for album covers (this is the cover of "An Introduction to Syd Barrett":
One day I will do a post on Storm's work, but it will be very hard choosing what goes in the post.
All in all it was a fantastic day, even if I didn't get any work done (apart from taking photographs to draw in my art book).
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