Because Thursday and Friday are Bank Holidays in the UK we shall only have time for two paintings from the excellent Sim Fine Arts exhibition here. Here is the first: Requisitioned Country House  by Trevor Makinson (1926-92) oil on canvas, signed & dated 1944. From the catalogue: 'Laura Knight was very taken with the young Trevor Makinson when she met him in Malvern during the war, describing him as an "unrepentant adherent of the traditional representational school of British painters" - qualities evident in this remarkable depiction of the young servicemen and women in a requisitioned country house.' Unsurprisingly, the painting has been sold; we are hoping to obtain permission to use it in the Biannually or even on the front of a new Persephone Classic (A House in the Country? Miss Ranskill?). But chapeau to the person who bought this marvellous picture.