Simon painted this painting in 1999, after a visit to the Munich Beer Festival. When Simon came back from the trip, he talked a lot about how strange he had found the whole visit, and how bizarre it had been to be two Jewish men, sitting in the beer tent after being in Dachau, and viewing what was going on around them.

The painting of the Merchant of Mittel Europa was obviously his response to this experience. Not only is it a very exact self-portrait in terms of the facial features, but he has included in the painting a whole range of objects and images that reflect his life.
There is firstly a rendition of a painting that Simon did of his father who died when he was 23, and that is taken from a photograph of his dad up a lamppost with a dog at his feet. This can be seen on the right of the figure.

Simon is wearing the Spanish hat that he wore when we got married.

There are objects placed around him that sat on our shelves for many years. These include a clay head that Simon’s brother modelled when he was at school, a figure from a Day of the Dead event we went to (Simon was very interested in the Day of the Dead), carvings made by my great-uncle who lived in Israel, a paper doll that we bought for one of our children, a little mirror we bought in Granada, a washing up brush from a visit to Israel and some of Simon’s toys from when he was a child.

In the painting Simon is wearing a flower brooch that he used to wear on his denim jacket, and the bugle he is carrying he had as a young man and kept in his studio with his collection of toys and memorabilia.

I suspect that the roll of toilet paper was him bringing some of his humour into his painting.
Every object would have been carefully chosen, and each has been rendered in great detail.

Here is a paragraph that Simon wrote about his work for an exhibition in 2004:

'Simon's work is highly contemporary, yet maintains a foothold in more timeless traditions of image making. Derived from diverse sources and influences, including autobiographical events, urban incidents, archetypal stories, photographs and memory, the paintings are carefully composed, compelling and contemplative.'

Raina Sheridan, April 2016