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Painting by gangster Ronnie Kray for sale
LONDON (Reuters) - A painting by notorious gangster Ronnie Kray goes under the hammer next month, auctioneer Thos Mawer said on Friday.
The crude oil painting shows a house and a tree by a river and is signed in large letters "R. Kray".
It is being sold with a photocopy of letter on prison notepaper from Kray asking: "Did John give you the painting? Did you like it? Your friend, Ron."
Ronnie and his twin brother Reggie ruled the roost in London's tough east end in the 1950s and 1960s, running a gang called "The Firm".
They were both jailed in 1969 for 30 years after Ronnie shot petty crook George Cornell in the Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel and Reggie stabbed Jack "The Hat" McVitie in a north London flat.
Ronnie was later found criminally insane and sent to Broadmoor secure hospital. He died in 1995 aged 61, Reg dying five years later.
Ronnie Kray took up painting while in prison and regularly painted the same picture of a landscape with a house and a tree.
In his autobiography "My Story," Kray discussed his painting after a prison psychologist Glen Wilson featured in a magazine article about reading murderers' minds through their art.
"They've got hold of one of my paintings as well. It is a painting of a house with a tree next to it," Kray wrote.
"This Dr Wilson says: 'Painted by an immature mind, this picture reveals a freedom fantasy and a strong desire to be at home.'"
The painting will go on auction in Lincoln in the eastern England on July 2.
See Ronnie Kray's Painting Here
LONDON (Reuters) - A painting by notorious gangster Ronnie Kray goes under the hammer next month, auctioneer Thos Mawer said on Friday.
The crude oil painting shows a house and a tree by a river and is signed in large letters "R. Kray".
It is being sold with a photocopy of letter on prison notepaper from Kray asking: "Did John give you the painting? Did you like it? Your friend, Ron."
Ronnie and his twin brother Reggie ruled the roost in London's tough east end in the 1950s and 1960s, running a gang called "The Firm".
They were both jailed in 1969 for 30 years after Ronnie shot petty crook George Cornell in the Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel and Reggie stabbed Jack "The Hat" McVitie in a north London flat.
Ronnie was later found criminally insane and sent to Broadmoor secure hospital. He died in 1995 aged 61, Reg dying five years later.
Ronnie Kray took up painting while in prison and regularly painted the same picture of a landscape with a house and a tree.
In his autobiography "My Story," Kray discussed his painting after a prison psychologist Glen Wilson featured in a magazine article about reading murderers' minds through their art.
"They've got hold of one of my paintings as well. It is a painting of a house with a tree next to it," Kray wrote.
"This Dr Wilson says: 'Painted by an immature mind, this picture reveals a freedom fantasy and a strong desire to be at home.'"
The painting will go on auction in Lincoln in the eastern England on July 2.
See Ronnie Kray's Painting Here
