Biscop, and the Starman

Today is the commemoration of Benedict Biscop – also known as Benet, and Biscop Baducing – patron saint of the city of Sunderland, pioneering innovator, an iconic individual who changed the cultural landscape forever.

Musician, artist, producer and arranger of others’ work, creating and inhabiting a space that introduced generations to a whole new way of seeing the world and the possibility of reinventing themselves within it, Benedict Biscop died in the same week as David Bowie, but 1,326 years earlier.

In honour of both, I have added Ziggy Stardust’s face-paint to Charles Robinson’s 1904 illustration, from Percy Dreamer’s The little Lives of the Saints.

Benedict Bowie. David Biscop.