Herefordshire painter puts £1.2m price tag on picture

1:00pm Wednesday 19th November 2008

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A HEREFORDSHIRE artist has turned his back on the credit crunch by making his latest offering the most expensive oil painting of a car ever.

Motor mad painter Laurence Meredith, aged 51, has put his picture of German racing driver Hans Stuck on the market for a cool £1.2 million – and is specifically aiming the sale at the super-rich, whom he says are responsible for the current climate in the first place.

He said: “One of the reasons I am putting this price on is to have my little protest at the current financial situation worldwide, which has been created by very, very greedy people.”

Mr Laurence, who lives in Brilley with his wife Trish and who has two children, said he had no concerns the image of a GP Auto Unions car would struggle to sell.

“The credit crunch never affects the super-rich that create the credit crunch in the first place,” he said.

Similar pictures by other motor specific artists, such as Dexter Brown, have previously gone for as much as £500,000 but selling this one would make Mr Laurence a record breaker.

He plans to spread the word among contacts made during a long career as a motor journalist and author to sell the painting but has no intentions of splashing the cash if and when he manages to do so.

The Porsche fanatic, whose forthcoming biography of the Porsche family is also a first, said: “I just want to keep on painting, that’s all I want to do.”