The Art of Butchery

Today we have a guest blog from Ilan Galkoff, great great grandson of Percy Galkoff, the butcher whose shopfront we have moved to the Museum of Liverpool as part of the Galkoff's and Secret Life of Pembroke Place project with Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

Drawing of the P. Galkoff shop by his great great Grandson, Ilan Galkoff

'I wanted to write a few words about how I came to create this piece of art depicting Galkoff’s Butcher shop. I’m Percy's great, great grandson and I’m currently 15 years old. In November 2017, my Grandpa Ivor was celebrating his 80th birthday. As a special gift for him, I decided to create a modern piece of art of his Grandpa Percy’s butchers shop. I drew it in about 5 hours on my iPad pro using a programme called Procreate. Having visited the site a couple of years earlier, I was able to see first hand the legacy that my Great Great Grandpa Percy had left. This helped to put a modern twist on my art. The two men at the windows are Percy (left) and his son Sydney (right). My Great Grandpa Sydney lived above the shop.

Sydney Galkoff, son of Percy Galkoff, outside the shop around 1990.    

Ilan and his family outside the shop in 2015.      

I wanted to put the bike at the front of the shop because I’d seen a Galkoff delivery bike in a photo and had been told about how Galkoff’s offered a delivery service to their customers’ doors. Once it was finished, I decided to get it printed on a canvas to give to my Grandpa for his birthday. I felt the canvas would give it some depth and it would stand out, giving him a constant reminder of his childhood. He loves the drawing and proudly displays it in his home.'