[1] It was through Lucy Wertheim that he held his first one-man show at her gallery in Burlington Gardens, and attracted positive critical attention.

[citation needed] During this time he met many other patrons of the arts, and he painted the young dancer's Margot Fonteyn and Robert Helpmann at Saddlers Wells.

He was part of the 20s group supported by Lucy Wertheim that included Christopher Wood, Barbara Hepworth, Roger Hilton, Robert Medley, Phelan Gibb, David Burton, Humphrey Slater and Victor Pasmore.

His first teaching job at Northampton Grammar School[3] where he worked and taught pupils, including actor/artist Jonathan Adams,[4] of whom he completed a portrait.

Art critic Ian Mayes summed up this aspect of his work in his review of his 1975 exhibition at St Catharine's College, Cambridge.