Duggie Fields was a consistent figure in London’s LGBTQ community, as documented in Kevin Hegge’s film Tramps! (2023) on the ‘80s art and music scene and noted in cultural historian Peter York’s article in the October 1976 issue of Harpers & Queens on Fields and his acquaintances, who at the time included Andrew Logan, Derek Jarman, and Divine.

           His body of work is defined by a signature form of maximalist figuration – marrying imagery from classical and popular culture with art historical references from Surrealism to Modernism. The paintings feature pictures appropriated and recast from manufacturing and commercial images, exercise manuals, and postcards of masterpieces. Fields often recalibrated these through intensive series of drawings to create the unique atmosphere of his paintings – their unease, comedy and sexuality. Fields cyclically reused and repurposed imagery within his painted canvases, a process intrinsically tied to his home and studio of 50 years.

           The artist produced much of his work in this Earl's Court residence, where he lived from 1968 until his death in 2021. He originally shared it with Syd Barrett. On the cover of his debut solo album The Madcap Laughs, 1968, Barrett crouches in the room that went on to become Fields' studio. A prolific maker, before his passing the space was occupied with furniture customised or designed by Fields. And the walls of each room featured Fields’ large-scale paintings.