Who remembers this iconic painting of Milton Keynes from the 1980s?

An iconic painting that sums up the spirit of the new city of Milton Keynes 40 years ago will bring back happy memories for tens of thousands of residents.

The giant artwork was commissioned by the former Milton Keynes Development Corporation and painted by artists Fionnuala Boyd and Les Evans in the early1980s.

It represents every MK stood for in those days – green spaces, happy families, lakes, and a great place to bring up children.

Officially called ‘Fiction, Non-Fiction and Reference’ it now forms part of the Milton Keynes Civic Collection and has taken pride of place in Central Milton Keynes Library for decades.

"Every time I went to the library, I’d look at this painting – and each time I’d spot something different in it, something I hadn’t seen before. It’s a really captivating pieces,” said one library user who spotted a photo of the painting on the popular Milton Keynes Past and Present Facebook page.

Another said: “I used to have a poster of it on my wall. It brings back so many memories of the early days of Milton Keynes.”

This summer the masterpiece was taken down from the library and loaned to MK Gallery, where it forms part of an exhibition into the artists, who are widely known as Boyd & Evans.

Running until September 17, the exhibition is called High Time and marks 55 years of the Boyd & Evans collaboration.

After their successful commissions in 1980, Boyd and Evans were invited back to Milton Keynes as officials ‘artists in residence’. They have remained ever since, making a name for themselves by painting surreal dramas that unfold in domestic, urban and suburban settings.

The exhibition includes satirical political work, much loved scenes of Milton Keynes and epic depictions of the natural world in the USA, Malaysia and Brunei.

It costs just £1 for MK residents to view and has prompted excellent reviews from national visitors over the summer.

Jonathan Jones from The Guardian declared it his Exhibition of the Week, saying: “Fionnuala Boyd and Les Evans have been making photorealist art since the 1960s and they’ve found their perfect subject in the Ballardian townscape of Milton Keynes.”

Another familiar Boyd & Evans for local people is ‘Inside Out’. This is a photographic work consisting of, 240 separate frames taken across Milton Keynes. These are digitally joined to make one image, plus a complex collage and it is all assembled to create a an illusion of a woodland park to celebrate Milton Keynes Development Corporation’s original concept of a ‘City in a Forest’

Inside Out was commissioned by Arts for Health Milton Keynes, supported by Milton Keynes Council, for the opening of the new main entrance in 2018 and was printed and installed by Format, Milton Keynes.

The artists themselves are still great fans of Milton Keynes. They said: “Coming for a year, 40 years ago, we are still here by choice, and delighted to show work we have done from the last 55 years, in a splendid gallery, in ‘our’ city.”

More information about the MK Gallery exhibition is here.