Late 1990, Robert Smith painted his own portrait. Maybe the cover for the Lovesong single (that he admitted loving) made by Maya the previous year, inspired him.

Not sure if the original painting included the first verse of the then-unreleased song "A Letter To Elise", but the prints that were issued on heavy stock did. They were limited to 1250 copies world-wide, and measured 21"x27".

There's always been very few mentions regarding which artists were his favorites. An old press cutting revealed the names of Chagall, Miro, Ernst... In Cure News, several years later, Chagall was named again. Mervyn Peake is also a name that is important, not only he was the author of books (Gormenghast's trilogy) but also an illustrator Robert is fond of.

Other painters appeared in tour programs : Bosch, Munch, Degas, Van Gogh... Actually the title "Bloodflowers" comes from a letter written by Munch and the reproduction of a painting (The Madona) was included in Robert's personal page on thecure.com at the time.

It should be noted as well that a painting by Perry was used to design the back cover of the Bloodflowers album. Perry's favorites are (were ?) Picasso and the surrealists. He listed the Tate Gallery as a place to visit in London. Jason revealed the names of Rembrandt and Mark Rothko. Roger pointed out David Hockney in the Prayer tourbook.

Porl Thompson (who was always the artist in the band) gave the name of Man Ray on the Wish tour book. But one can assume he has many favorites, judging by influences on his work for Cure covers (Miro, Dali, Dada movement). Visit Porl's site (with his own paintings from few years ago) : http://www.porl.co.uk