Closing The Loop

In preparation for the upcoming exhibition “Viewpoints” at the Admiralty Gallery next month, Francis Sprout was looking through his studio flat files and discovered a cache of figurative drawings he had executed in undergraduate school more than 50 years ago.

“Oh, to be young again!” he thought. The loosely rendered drawings and ink washes of dancers brought him back to his classes with Professor Mel Sanger at the University of Arizona where he decided he would be an artist for the rest of his life. Then, with all the passion of a 20-year-old, he got started.

While many of Francis’ teachers dressed in blazers and neck ties, Sanger, sporting a beard and blue jeans, was “really an artist.” At 30, Sanger was only 10 years older than Francis, who identified with his teacher’s youthfulness and thrived off of his energy. “We would go into his studio and by the end of the class, we’d walk out with a stack of drawings,” he says.