It’s typical of Murray that he is constantly asking questions. Hambling doesn’t find this easy to deal with, explaining that “it’s fatal when I think”. But then Murray is one of those people who likes to take things apart and look at them from every angle, as if the world were a giant Rubik’s Cube.
Perhaps his close interest in the art world shouldn’t surprise us. He lives with an artist, after all: wife Kim, who paints portraits of pets. He once even experimented with creating his own work – although it didn’t go terribly well.
“It’s like most things really,” he told The Guardian’s arts correspondent at the unveiling of the Hambling portrait. “You think, ‘I could do that’ or ‘that’s not difficult’. My wife was out that night, I was by myself in the house. She came back from dinner and was like, ‘What the hell have you done?’ I ended up with paint on the ceiling and all over the floor. It was horrific.”
For Trotman, who developed his artistic interests as a 25-year-old tennis vagabond, there are certain parallels between art and sport. He admits, though, that not everyone in the locker-room is as open-minded as his younger self, who spent many hours visiting museums and galleries in between tournaments or coaching appointments.
“The other guys used to laugh at me,” Trotman told Telegraph Sport. “Because abstract art was a big area of mine, and they’d look at it and say, ‘Well, look, I could do that. I don’t get it. It’s rubbish.’
“Which is the typical mentality. But then I’d start to show them the artists’ early work before they turned to abstraction and how good they actually are. And it’s kind of fascinating, because it’s more about their journey in pushing their boundaries. It’s about asking ‘How can I challenge myself?’ – just the same as tennis players or any profession. And so that’s why a lot of them turned to abstract art: that search for something different, and something a little bit more cutting edge.”
Trotman says he keeps at least 100 pieces in his home and garage. A couple of rooms have been converted into mini-galleries, and sometimes he has to sell work in order to make space for his latest purchases. “Everything has a value, and you can’t ignore it,” he says. “But primarily I’m always buying with a view to what I want to live with.
“Jack’s not one of us yet, he’s not there,” Trotman added. “But Andy likes his art. Cam enjoys it. And I think sometimes it’s just an escape. You’ve got your work and your tennis, which is so intense, takes up so much of your time. And then there’s family and the commitment there. The one thing I’ve got that’s mine is my art. So when I get a spare moment, I’ll research it and go to shows and try to buy bits and pieces at auction.
“The tournaments themselves are so busy, but if people are training at the National Tennis Centre or working on the grass, we get a little bit more time around each other. It’s another point of conversation. We’ll WhatsApp images through and talk about artists. With Instagram now, it’s so easy to follow. It’s such a visual picture, isn’t it?” He pauses, then grins. “But, yeah, I used to get a few snide remarks for sure.”
