Thu 6 May 2021 12.26 EDT
Last modified on Thu 6 May 2021 14.25 EDT
Clutching a quill and pots of ink, Philip Sutton ended his 421-day care home lockdown this week by heading out to do what has been impossible since the Covid pandemic began: observe something new and capture it on paper.
The 92-year-old Royal Academician, who built a reputation as one of Britain’s most celebrated colourist painters, has been confined to Harbour House, a Quaker care home in Dorset, since 9 March 2020 under government guidelines to protect vulnerable people.
Policies discouraging care home residents from going out have led to desperate complaints that people were in effect being imprisoned even as infection rates fell. And the rules have denied Sutton fresh landscapes, his regular long beach walks and the joy of unexpected encounters. But this week, he, and hundreds of thousands of others, were finally released from the longest of lockdowns.