Surrealist Anthony Earnshaw's work returned to the rooms it was once imagined as a struggling young artist

Gail Earnshaw in the space where her late husband Anthony Earnshaw created The Seven Secret Alphabet No 6, pictured with Tony Salaris of Deliziosa who is displaying the painting in his Italian restaurant.

As a struggling artist in the late 1960s, Anthony Earnshaw had handcrafted works in the dining room of a dark and dingy flat which would go on to earn him significant surrealist acclaim.

Now, some decades after his death, his widow has returned his work to the place where it was created, to hang above the fireplace in a now flourishing Italian restaurant.

To see his ideas returned to their birthplace, said Gail Earnshaw, feels a fitting tribute.

“I often watched him, sitting and drawing in that room,” said Mrs Earnshaw, now aged 70, who still lives in the Chapel Allerton district of Leeds where the couple had first made their home.

Anthony Earnshaw in Chapel Allerton in 1988. Photo by Michael Woods.

“I was brought to tears when I saw the fabulous job of converting it into a restaurant.

“This is really something special, to see his work returned to where it was invented in 1971. It’s heartwarming, like a jigsaw piece puzzle that has come together.

“It all fits, after all these years, and long after he’s gone. The circle is now complete.”

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Gail Earnshaw from Chapel Allerton in Leeds with a book about her late husband Anthony Earnshaw 'The Imp of Surrealism' in the flat he did some of his paintings Writer: Byline: Gary Longbottom

Ilkley-born artist and writer Anthony Earnshaw, who died in 2001 at the age of 76, was described as an “anarchist of distinction” with a lively individualism and charismatic style.

As his success grew, he published novels which became cult classics, with works at galleries such as The Tate, Cartwright Hall, and Leeds City Art Gallery.

“He was a very modest, quiet man, who left school at 14 to work as a lathe turner and engineer for 26 years,” said Mrs Earnshaw. “But he was this other man, who talked about art and spent his days in libraries. He was self taught, he believed in what he did and people saw that in him.