Michael Dickens
Expert in microscopy as well as Stanley Spencer and his circle
MICHAEL DICKENS, who has died aged 68, forged successful careers in medical research and then as an art dealer with a special interest in Sir Stanley Spencer and his circle, despite suffering for his whole life from disability.
An only child, Michael John Dickens was born on May 22 1942 to George Dickens, a businessman, and his wife Dorothy, née Andrews. When he contracted spinal tuberculosis aged four, his parents handed him into the care of the nursing sisters of St Vincent de Paul at St Vincent Orthopaedic Hospital at Eastlake, near Pinner. He remained there until he was 11.
With the introduction of the antibiotic streptomycin he made a partial recovery, learnt to walk with sticks and returned home to Bourne End, near Cookham. He then underwent a series of operations on his spine carried out by Professor Valentine Logue.
He had a slight hump and his height had been stunted to five feet two. Though he learnt to walk again, after overhearing doctors predicting that he would probably not live beyond 20, he decided there was not time to go to university.
After taking A-levels at High Wycombe College of Further Education, he became a researcher in the experimental surgery department directed by Professor Denis Melrose at Hammersmith Hospital.
There he became responsible for the development of microscopy techniques for the detection of rejection in organ transplantation in association with the South African heart surgeon Christiaan Barnard.
In 1969 Dickens moved to the University of Surrey where he taught elements of an MSC course in biological engineering and collaborated with Audrey Smith, an expert on bone cells and tissues. Papers began to flow into scientific journals.
In the early 1970s he joined the MRC Cell Biophysics Unit at King’s College, London, directed by the Nobel prizewinner Professor Maurice Wilkins.
There he researched the molecular mechanism of cell motility and developed an expertise in electron microscopy, lasers and computed image analysis. He undertook lecture tours across Europe and was awarded the President’s Gold Medal of the Royal Microscopic Society, of which he became a fellow.
When Wilkins retired in 1989, Dickens decided to change career and pursue a long-held passion for art. Aged 16, he had found himself sitting next to Sir Stanley Spencer at a recital. In time, he met Spencer’s family and became an authority on the artist and his circle.
In particular he championed Dorothy Hepworth, the lifetime partner of Patricia Preece, who had become Spencer’s second wife in 1937 and had exhibited and sold the shy Hepworth’s paintings under her own name.
During the 1990s Dickens promoted her work in shows, exhibitions, lectures and tours to the United States.
But at the age of 58 he fell ill at his home in the French Pyrenees. His diaphragm had partially collapsed and, although saved from death by French doctors, for the rest of his life he required breathing support and was confined to a wheelchair.
The old house he had restored was sold, a vineyard was bought, the land cleared and a fine villa built to accommodate his needs, round which he created a beautiful garden.
During his years at King’s College, Dickens always enjoyed the cultural life of London. He met writers such as Angus Wilson and Tennessee Williams and was a friend of Iris Murdoch, becoming her art executor.
His great love was ballet, in pursuit of which he travelled to the Soviet Union on 13 occasions during the Cold War, attracting the attention of their secret services during one visit. He became friends with Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev and attended concerts by Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland.
He was unmarried.
Michael Dickens, born May 22 1942, died March 17 2020