“At first it was Sam Rabin’s paintings that caught my imagination, simple: non-visceral representations of boxers in a boxing ring, sometimes with a referee, sometimes without.  The overall effect was of a group of brightly coloured butterflies caught in a trap made of white strings.  They did not have to be paintings of boxing matches; such was the degree of abstraction achieved by the artist.  Then, on closer inspection, I realised there were recognisable stances, moves and counter moves, that were familiar to me from my limited experience of watching boxing with my father at Streatham Baths as a young boy, or the occasional big fight coverage in the cinema of a bout featuring mostly world champions, Joe Louis or Rocky Marciano, or even one of Britain’s many horizontal heavyweight challengers. 

I knew nothing of the artist and had never been particularly interested in representations of boxers before, not that there are many around.  Perhaps the reason was that for a large part of my life boxing was very unfashionable with only the rare glimpses of what appeared to be extraordinary courage, or exaggerated showmanship, making the back pages of the popular press.

In 1986 my daughter, Rebecca, having graduated with a degree in Fine Art, had recently begun to paint large canvases of boxers and boxing matches.  She explained that her inspiration lay in the works of Sam Rabin.  The Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, had mounted a one man show for Rabin in November 1985.  The exhibition was curated by John Sheeran who researched and wrote the catalogue.  Did she still have a copy of the catalogue?  She did.  I was enthralled. Where could I see this art?  This was nigh on impossible.  Very little of Rabin’s output is available for public viewing.  Only the British Museum, the Manchester Art Gallery and the Salford Art Gallery own a few works.  Most were, at the time, either in private collections or still owned by the artist.  In any case Rabin’s output, the output that survived his periodic purges, was relatively small.

There was however another story. Sheeran related an extraordinary tale of Rabin as a precocious young talent for drawing, a sculptor of international repute, an Olympic athlete, a professional wrestler, a stunt man performing in Alexander Korda’s pre-war history romances, a Forces entertainer in the Second World War, and a singer of light classics who was regularly hired by the BBC for its Friday night music programmes.  As a final flourish of a serially successful performer, Rabin became an acclaimed teacher of drawing at Goldsmiths’ College, revered by his students, some of whom became key figures in the second half of the 20th century in Britain’s art world…”