Janetta was a painter but she did not share her interest with her daughter. Colours were “laid out and clearly precious to her . . . [I] gathered that painting was clearly approved of . . . my interest in it was deemed the one good thing about me.” Indeed, Nicky had inherited her mother’s talent. She trained at Chelsea School of Art under Lawrence Gowing, and then at the Slade under Coldstream, at a time when teaching was still both rigorous and free. Gowing brought in teachers he admired — the artists Michael Wishart, Leon Kossoff and Craigie Atchison — and encouraged them to work alongside the students in the life classes.

In Henry James’s novel What Maisie Knew, Maisie shuttles back and forth between her immoral and frivolous parents, who use her to intensify their hatred of each other, while abandoning all their responsibilities to the child. James’s novel is a harsh indictment of grown-ups who can’t be bothered, but also a touching portrait of a child who both knows and does not know.

From Nicky there is no condemnation or judgment as each stepfather explosively departs. Within all the hurt and pain, recorded in half-abstract images and portraiture, there are flashes of spiritual insight and uplifting drops of joy. The result is a courageous, gentle hymn to survival. I was at school and art school with Nicky, and can testify to the extraordinary charisma she exerted over all of us; but she never revealed the existential chasm beneath it, brought home to me only now, thanks to this deeply engaging book.

Over the decades Nicky Loutit’s paintings have been bought by a large band of admirers. Her private and  sensitive personality has never sought promotion. If her galleries had acted with the professionalism  of today’s Serota-style public relations, she would surely be more widely known. Through the unorthodox Propolis Publishing House, however, we now have an avenue to Nicky’s gentle sensibility. Public recognition of one of the foremost painters of our time will surely follow.