Valentine's Day

As a precocious Hertfordshire schoolboy, Valentine Lawford painted scenes from Tudor history. And as a dashing young diplomat at Yalta, he doodled "unauthorized portraits" of Stalin. Then he penned a best-selling memoir, illustrated with his own lively drawings. In his sixties, Lawford, also the housemate and biographer of Horst, at last decided to devote himself to painting. His luscious floral watercolors were snapped up even as they dried by such grande dame enthusiasts as Brooke Astor and Bunny Mellon. Shortly before his death last summer, Lawford—who had finally surrendered to pleas to produce volume two of his autobiography and a book of his botanical studies for Abrams—avowed, "Frankly, painting flowers is the only profession that has given me unmitigated pleasure."

A.F.C.