Conrad decided he needed a career. Before he had left the master of a hunt had commissioned a set of paintings of the seasons best hunters and had them bound and published. Conrad decided to build on this small success and train as an artist. He secured a place at Slade School of Art and began under the tutelage of a Professor Tonks he though transferred to Byam Shaw and settled into three years training under Earnest Jackson.  Then to finish his education he attended the Academy of Modern Art in Paris. His brother Alexsis was studying there also. There he remained for a further three years studying under Andre L’ Hote. From here was to begin the Art Deco movement. From such beginnings Conrad the artist was born.

                    In the best traditions of the budding artist of the day Conrad found an attic studio in the Parc Monsouri district. He mentions many friends during his time in Paris. Simon Elwes, who later became a famous artist. Henri Cartier- Bresson,the photographer. Guy Arnoux, the artist and Elena Mumm the champagne heiress who was later to become the wife of the American writer and critic Edmund Wilson these were some of his intimates during his time in Paris. It is evident, as usual; Conrad was in the centre of things mixing with the burgeoning artists of the time.                                                                                                

It was the time of the great depression and making a living from art was difficult. Conrad had begun corresponding with his father and it was his father who suggested they spend Christmas in Jamaica. The both agreed to avoid tourist Hotels and instead seek out the

‘Old Jamaica’, sugar plantations and grand estates. A Jamaica that no longer existed; the cultivation of sugar beet in Europe had put an end to those days.  Conrad though had the address of two maiden spinsters, known as the “Misses Fisher of Mahogany Hall”. Itself a once grand sugar estate now fallen into disuse, It was ideal for their purposes. They booked a passage on the SS Montagua, literally a Fyffe banana boat, bound for Kingston. Their accommodation and surroundings at Mahogany hall was all they had hoped for. The Misses Fisher both in their seventies; though living in reduced circumstances were, as Conrad puts it, “the victors of a rearguard action into glory”. He and his father truly got a taste of the Jamaica they had dreamt of. In the New Year they moved to Montego bay and Conrad rented himself a studio and did much work towards an exhibition he was planning when he returned home. The presence of his father the Marquis De Castel Thomond was reported in a local paper and they were finally caught in the Jamaican Society scene, just at the end of their stay. Conrad gave a few lectures on modern art and judged a couple of beauty contests and sold a few pictures. His father yearned for the high society and intellectual life of Rome and Conrad had an exhibition to arrange. So they sailed for Avon mouth and travelled as far as Paris together where they parted and his father journeyed on to Rome. Conrad set out his art around his studio and spent the summer of 1930 preparing for his exhibition of Jamaican paintings. Maximillian Gauthier wrote the introduction to the catalogue. The exhibition was not a wild success Conrad tells us, but he sold a few pictures received encouraging remarks from some prominent people so was satisfied. Of his art he says.

“I drew simply because I love to draw. It became to me like a caressingly re-creative movement, giving form in subtle lines with all the best of my technical ability, in terms of planes and curves and other aspects of dimensions, to a subject seen in its light of perfection. Not merely studies but portrayals, my drawings became to me a revelation in economical line of all moods and subtleties of those eternally enchanting qualities in the subject. My art unfolded before me as a means of discovery and of sharing the truth as I found it revealed around me.” dm P106

Drawing was more a therapeutic pastime, a pleasure for him. He; I was told, seldom had a pencil and pad far from hand and sketched everything. If you see my collection you can see what they meant.