<< back David Ransom pays tribute to an unheralded genius I tend to  forget what’s on the T-shirt I’m wearing. But there was one that always  reminded me – particularly when I was in the Amazon more than 10 years  ago – because people would smile and say: ‘That’s it! That’s it!’ The T-shirt soon wore out, but the memory of it returned when I was editing the June 2004 edition of this magazine about co-operatives. The image would, I felt, make the perfect front cover. But, as with most icons, it had usually been used without attribution, and it proved impossible to track down the artist in time to ask for permission.

Soon after  the magazine was published I received a message from a subscriber saying  that the image had been created by the artist Ken Sprague – an unheralded genius. He had dreamt up the idea while trying to communicate with banana workers in the Canary Islands – the big black fi sh was General Franco, the Spanish dictator who was still in power at the time. Having discovered this, I promptly called Ken on the telephone to apologise. Without a trace of anger, a gentle voice said that this was the fi rst time anyone had bothered to do so, and for that at least he was grateful.

A few weeks  later I heard that Ken Sprague had died, aged 77, after a long and  intriguing life that is celebrated in a wonderful book by John Green,  Ken Sprague – People’s Artist (Hawthorn Press in partnership with Artery Publications, 2002. Though it is foolish not  to credit the inspiration on which we rely, and too late now to make  a difference, it would be more foolish still not to celebrate the richness  of his legacy with a small sample of his work from that book.

David Ransom