HABERDASHERY MULLET, ARTIST, DIES AT 40

The artist, Haberdashery Mullet has died at the age of forty. He had taken his own life using a palette knife to gouge out both his carotid arteries. His body was found in the early hours of Friday morning in the grounds of Drusillas Park, where he had lived and worked—obsessively producing mixed media images of Cilla Black—for over twenty years.

  Born in Godalming in 1977, little is known of Haberdashery’s early years or schooling. He always claimed to be a self-taught artist and first came to public attention in his twenties, when the national media took an interest in his eccentric lifestyle, largely as a result of his run-ins with the police and law courts over his adoption of Drusillas Park as his residence and full-time studio.

  Although Haberdashery’s artistic career had all the hallmarks of a resounding failure in his lifetime, he was fondly regarded by many visitors to Drusillas. Now, his sudden death is likely to stimulate a revival of interest in his work from the art world. There are believed to exist in the region of 13, 000 mixed-media images of Cilla Black—the object of Haberdashery’s bizarre lifelong obsession—scattered across Drusillas Park.

  A spokesperson for the Saatchi and Yeti Gallery, in Soho, said: ‘If Cilla Black could accrue considerable personal wealth on the strength of her talents, it is not implausible to imagine that a series of works by a (soon to be) well-publicised, dead, destitute/eccentric, fetching a respectable sum in the wake of an aggressive marketing campaign.’

Haberdashery Mullet—artist and Cilla Black fan.

Born 24^th of Dec. 1977—Died 16^th of Dec. 2016.

Anji Noracull.