I had been until then a predictable graduate of the Slade’s short course for students of the Selassie Bursary: capable but not exciting, and without a distinctive voice and vision of my own. The Emperor was pleased to send students abroad to study in all disciplines, and bring them back to teach so that his nation might rise among the peoples of the world. I was full of skills and notions and likely until this moment to inherit some academic post here in Addis Ababa from which I would rise according to my political and social acuity rather than my brush. I was—had been—a practitioner of the craft of painting and yet not a painter.