Music studio door used by Simple Minds to be auctioned

The standard hallmarks of a door - keyhole, knob and letterboxes - blend into the image

The painted door to a former London music studio used by Simple Minds and Ian Dury and The Blockheads is to be sold at auction.

Music producer Jonathan Rowlands said clients often struggled to find the entrance to his basement studio in Chelsea.

He decided to have his logo, of a smoking teddy bear in a suit, painted on the door to make it more easily identifiable.

The studio closed in the 1980s.

Rowlands, 84, asked singer-songwriter Dury, who was in the studio at the time, if he knew of any artists who might be able to help.

'Took it off its hinges'

Dury, most famous for the number one 1978 single Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick, recommended Humphrey Ocean, a former student at an art college where he had taught.

"Come the end of the lease I decided I loved it, took it off its hinges thinking I was going to open up another studio somewhere, and of course it remained packed up for years," said Rowlands, of Bakewell, Derbyshire.

He said his wife suggested they should sell the door after he rediscovered it when clearing out their garden shed.

"It had just followed me round as a packed-up item," Rowlands said.

The bear was painted on the door after people failed to spot it as the entrance to the music studio

The teddy bear is painted above a line of musical notation on the door, which measures 198cm by 75cm by 5cm.

"The doorknob is in the incorrect place but it's the correct place for the door," said Rowlands, commenting on the fixture's position in the bear's groin area.

The item, which has a pre-auction estimate of £1,000 to £1,500, is to be auctioned at Cheffins in Cambridge on 26 October.

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