Letters: an artist’s work shouldn’t be judged by how he leads his life

Wrong is right

Sir: Having spent most of my working life in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), I never pass up an opportunity to catch up on what is happening in Africa. Michela Wrong’s article (‘Hotel Rwanda’, 23 April) illustrates well the incompetence of Priti Patel in sending asylum seekers to President Paul Kagame’s Rwanda against, apparently, the advice of her own civil servants.

I had to read that bit twice because I have always admired Patel for her forthright and sensible executive decisions. But what is the motive here? Michela Wrong itemises Kagame’s history of killings going back to 1994 and the atrocities committed by Rwandan troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1996 and 1997 in an unholy alliance with Congolese rebels. Frankly, I am appalled.

Donald King

Kennerleigh, Devon

The deal of the art

Sir: Having worked in the picture department at Christie’s in the 1970s I was disappointed to see the level of wokeness that has crept into such a fine establishment (‘Bigger picture’, 30 April). Apart from those whom Jack Wakefield mentions – Eric Gill, Balthus, Caravaggio and Picasso – there are other countless great artists with flawed characters. The most obvious are Egon Schiele, Richard Dadd and Fra Filippo Lippi, but the list continues. I would have thought the job of an auctioneer is to sell art rather than making moral judgments and ‘cancelling’ artists. They would be foolish to refuse to sell pictures by any of the above, who are no more or less honourable than Gill.

Sir Charles Blomefield

Cross about Blackwell’s

Sir: Martin Vander Weyer (Any other business, 23 April) comments on the takeover of Blackwell’s bookshops by Waterstones, and the deleterious effect of Amazon on physical bookselling. I hope that Waterstones, under the leadership of James Daunt, will not only retain Blackwell’s name over the door for my lifetime – I am 85 and intend to go on reading for a long time – but also its ethos of a well-loved and informed organisation.