In 1820 the British poet John Keats spent 10 days quarantined in the Bay of Naples on the Maria Crowther.  With his artist friend Joseph Severn, Keats settled in the harbour, tied down by the country’s rigorous quaranta giorni – the origin of our word quarantine – before setting off for Rome, his final resting place.

In 2019, the Keats-Shelley House in Rome commissioned Cadogan to create a series of paintings that celebrated the life and legacy of Keats and to mark the 200th anniversary of his death. It was a surreal process to enter the studio and create a show about quarantine and illness, just as the world entered lockdown. This mirroring is reflected in the work.

In 2020 Cadogan finally presented Gusto in London at Browns Hotel. The show opened in Rome on 31 October, Keats’s birthday.