Freida hughes biography sampler

At the opening night of her private view and book launch, poet and artist Frieda Hughes appeared at the door of the Belgravia Gallery in Mayfair, a small but striking figure in a pillarbox-red suit.

In the twilight, her bright eyes and ready smile seemed to pour out light. Mysteriously my name had not been on the guest list. She searched my face with lighthouse eyes for a recollection of who or what I was.

Freida hughes biography sampler images

Finding nothing, she smiled and shrugged and waved me in anyway.

Alternative Values is a series of abstract paintings and poems. The titular painting features an abstracted owl – eyes, beak, feathers rearranged – and the lines:

What we think we see
Is not always the truth, and we should wait
For an alternative view to be delivered …

For someone such as Hughes, such words need no explanation.

Since the loss of her mother Sylvia Plath, when Frieda was not quite three, she has been at the mercy of authorised and unauthorised biographers, filmmakers, novelists, journalists an