Alongside music, Maggie and I began to take an interest in art. Sculpture appealed to me, having that engineering component; one can walk around sculpture. By the time we were in our thirties, we had both put together small picture collections—for me, British marine paintings, and for Maggie, portraits of children. When we could afford it, we moved to the Post-Impressionists, and we both had to agree before buying anything. But both paintings and other items formed hunting trophies. Whenever I managed to get a business deal away, we would go art hunting, so the souvenirs hanging on the walls reminded me of some business adventure or other.
Patron of the Arts
Occasionally, when we were alone, we would dim the lights at night, pour ourselves a glass, and wander through the great house at Eddington, gazing at the windows of light and colour as they shone out of the darkness and, in the centre of the atrium, Locking Piece, a huge Henry Moore sculpture of two pebbles found on a beach, cast in green bronze the year we were married, 1962.
Over the years, I was asked to become Vice Patron of the Royal British Society of Sculptors (RBS)—the late Queen Elizabeth II was Patron—and I worked with them for ten years in an attempt to improve their commercial success. The Queen had come to open the largest contemporary sculpture exhibition at Kew in London, which caused a flurry of interest, and I remained a supporter.
The late Queen Elizabeth II is greeted by Lady Michael at Pete’s office on a rainy day.
The Judgment of Paris, a mural by Gary Myatt at the Vineyard Hotel, is an artistic interpretation of the famous tasting in May 1976. Pete, featured in his Panama hat, was not at the tasting, but was watching from afar the impact that this had on the California wine industry.
At the inauguration of the new Queen’s Library, the late Queen Elizabeth II inspects Jane Austen’s manuscript for The Watsons, a never-published forerunner to Mansfield Park. Pete gave it as a permanent loan until it was auctioned and bought by the Oxford Bodleian Libraries in 2011.
Pete and Maggie hold Peter Michael Winery by Thomas Cordell, which was a gift from Paul and Emily.
Sir Roy Strong and Pete are discussing the sculpture Fire & Water by William Pye, at the unveiling at the Vineyard Hotel, 1998.
Sculptor Henry Moore creating Locking Piece in 1962, the year Pete and Maggie were married.
Pete sitting by Henry Moore’s Locking Piece at Eddington House.
