The Property of the Late Christopher Hobbs

Christopher Hobbs (1941-2024) was a talented artist and production designer working on films as varied as Edward II, The Long Day Closes, Jubilee, Velvet Goldmine and Mansfield Park. He had studied at the Slade before turning his hand to prop design for Ken Russell’s 1971 witchcraft drama The Devils. It was there that he worked alongside Derek Jarman and the pair went on the work on several films together including Caravaggio and The Last of England. His final screen work, the BBC television serial of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast (2000), for which he created more than 100 sets, brought him the Royal Television Society’s best production design award. “It’s impossible not to admire the stunning visual imagination of Christopher Hobbs,” wrote the critic Steve Grant.