“Rudest Landlord”
The Atlas pub was suggested to him by a follower on TikTok. Although it is located on a quiet street, near a leafy cemetery, the artist’s work is somewhat disturbed by ambulance sirens and a plumber’s van parked right in front of the building.
The red brick building is closed until late afternoon.
Built in Victorian times, at the end of the 19th century, it has carefully preserved its original woodwork, but now, instead of the typical “fish and chips” (breaded fish and chips), it offers risotto or confit duck thigh on its menu.
“It looks very elegantWood says.
Although he does not use his project as an excuse to go from bar to barlikes to visit these establishments to get an idea of their atmosphere, whether it is a “local” bar with regular customers from the area or a more or less touristy establishment in the center of the capital with an ever-changing clientele.
A few days after immortalizing The Atlas, Wood travels to bustling Soho to sketch a very different pub, The Coach and Horses, which he has already been to many times.
“When you’ve been to a pub, you have some kind of connection to it,” he explains.
He chose this place because a person had mentioned it in a comment under one of his TikTok videos assuring him that his grandfather, Norman Balon, known as “the rudest proprietor in London”, had run the establishment for over 60 years.
“I love those kinds of anecdotes,” admits Wood, the story “I was immediately drawn to it.”
Housed in a historic 19th-century building, The Coach and Horses is now run by a chain of breweries and on Saturday afternoons it is paraded by a steady stream of patrons sitting on its terrace with their pints.
Drawing it takes almost three hours. “It’s funny: there are a lot of people around, but it’s actually quite a calm drawing“.