Saturday Taxpayers

This painting came to Gerald Cains (1932-present) in a dream, so he hastily made a sketch of it when he awoke. He imagined people heading to Portsmouth’s Fratton Park stadium, passing rows of terraced houses, a scene reminiscent of Saturday afternoons across the country.

Cains’ emphasis on the football supporter, typical of many of the works on display at the Football and the Fine Arts exhibition, might be read as an intriguing and evocative response to the particular conditions in which both football and the art world found itself in 1953.

The provocative title refers to an Entertainment Tax levy that football match tickets were subject to at the time. This levy was first introduced during the First World War and despite protests at the time of painting, calls for a repeal had been rejected.

At 22, Cains was the youngest artist in the 1953 exhibition.