This profile of artist Robert Lenkiewicz makes for a fascinating read.

From the corpse of a tramp he had embalmed (whom he called Diogenes after he found him living in a barrel on a rubbish tip) to the skeleton of a 16th-century midwife who was hanged for witchcraft which he kept in a long wooden box on top of the piano, through his prolific production quantified in 10,000 works and his miriad lovers, it was his lust for books that struck me most:

"Though his work could be lurid and shocking to the uninitiated observer, Lenkiewicz always maintained that it was underpinned by complex sociological ideals and philosophies. Much of this background was gleaned from his library of more than 50,000 rare books, arranged by subject – witchcraft, metaphysics, art biographies – and housed in his various properties, including St Saviour's Church, around Plymouth. He spent all the money he had (and plenty he didn't) on them, even doing a two-month sentence in Exeter prison for stealing four rare books from the Plymouth City Museum in the early 1970s."

When he died, book dealers came knocking for money, one of whom was owed over £300,000. Sales of his enormous collections of books at Sotheby's account for about £1.6m.

Suddenly I was aware that if I did that painting I could get that book.