Sargy Mann

Martin Oliver Henson Mann (29 May 1937 – 5 April 2015), known as Sargy Mann, was a British painter. Over the course of his career, Mann's subject matter featured both landscapes and portraiture. Mann began to lose his eyesight in 1973. An avid painter, he was undeterred by his failing vision and as such he continued to find new ways of seeing as his artistic career progressed.

Early life, education and teaching Sargy Mann was born in Hythe, Kent, in 1937, son of Stanley Mann and Mary B. (née Kent) Mann. Mann went on to teach at both Camberwell and the Camden Arts Centre until 1988 and his lessons focused on the transformative powers of light and colour. His commercial success was slow, though, and he returned to Camberwell in 1967 to become the first ever postgraduate student in their painting school. He then in 1967 moved into the house of friends Elizabeth Jane Howard and Sir Kingsley Amis in Hertfordshire. Mann spent all of his free time painting in their garden. He lived among these friends until 1976, when he married friend and former student Frances Carey. The exhibit featured his "Lemmons bathroom" works, depicting the room of his friends' home. The show was met with success, and was proceeded with his "sketchbook" collection.

In 1994, Mann served as co-curator for the Bonnard at le Bosquet exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London.

Sight and style Mann's sight started to deteriorate in 1973. At 36 years of age, he developed cataracts in both eyes, followed by retinal detachments. Despite cataract surgery, retinal detachments and burst corneal ulcerations left one eye nearly blind, followed years later by a total loss of vision. He first used a specifically modified telescope to enlarge images in the better eye. One eye saw differently from the other, and suddenly Mann was experimenting with single-eye versus double-eye vision. In his artist statement, he recalled his method for seeing: "As I tried to understand her position and the chair in my totally blind state, by touch alone, I found that my brain… was busy turning this three dimensional understanding into the view that I would have seen, and the two dimensional pattern this would give." On 21 November 2010, reporter Tim Adams of The Observer wrote "Sargy Mann: the blind painter of Peckham". (Mann was one of six artists chosen for the collection.)

Most recently, Sargy Mann is featured in the BBC interactive project, The Story of Now. The "art" section of the interactive film follows his artistic journey.