Artist Sue Macartney-Snape came to London from Australia in 1980. Her humorous drawings, made in pencil and watercolour and turned into limited edition prints, capture the British social scene. Here she shows an audience picnicking in the grounds of the opera house at Glyndebourne.

Glyndebourne, a Sussex manor house, had belonged to the Christie family since the mid 19th century. In 1934 John Christie and his wife, the opera singer Audrey Mildmay, opened a theatre, built as an annex to the house’s organ room. Their intention was to stage small scale professional productions of opera in an annual summer festival. The theatre had 300 seats and an orchestra pit large enough to accommodate a symphony orchestra. Over the years the building was enlarged in piecemeal fashion. In the late 1980s John Christies’s son George, who was then running the Glyndebourne Festival, determined to construct a completely new theatre. Designed by Michael Hopkins and Partners, the rebuilt opera house, now seating 1200, opened in 1994. The manor and theatre can be seen at the rear of Sue Macartney-Snape’s drawing.

The Glyndebourne Festival takes place during the summer months and it has become traditional for opera goers to picnic in the gardens. It is customary to wear evening dress, following a tradition established by John Christie who saw it as a way of showing respect for the performers. Sue Macartney-Snape depicts a host of very English characters enjoying the gardens. In the lower left hand corner are a pair of pug dogs. The Christie family are devoted to pugs – John Christie claimed to have called his son after a beloved pug, George.