Dorothy Coke painted many water-colours showing the demolition of the old Brighton art school in 1964. On one of them she has written ‘why?’ – and of course she was right, fifty years later the powers-that-be at Brighton must very much regret that they didn’t renovate and extend a beautiful and characterful building rather than replacing it with something merely useful. ‘Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful’ (William Morris): they opted for the former, deciding that even in an art school beauty was too complicated although, to be fair, perhaps 21st century art students do think their building beautiful. (Jennings Fine Art has kindly sent us a pdf of the catalogue of the Dorothy Coke exhibition eighteen months ago. If you email lydia@persephonebooks.co.uk we shall pleased to send it.)