North West

Manchester artist Michael Browne has been a Manchester United fan all of his life.

The team has inspired some of his greatest - and most controversial - works of art.

Inside Out has been following his progress as he works on his latest canvas - a reworking of a renaissance painting featuring George Best.

For the last four months artist Michael Browne has been toiling away on his new work in a room above a pub in Manchester's Castlefield district.

His makeshift artist's studio is dominated by a canvas based on Raphael's The Transfiguration.

But in Michael's version the figure of Christ has been replaced with that of footballing legend George Best.

Controversy and Cantona

It's not the first time Michael has cast a United player in a biblical setting.

His 1997 painting The Art of The Game featuring Eric Cantona was based on Piero della Francesca's Resurrection of Christ.

Extract from Art of the Game by Michael Browne.

But Michael denies that he sees George Best as a Messiah figure.

He says that the painting is all about leaving behind earthly desires, the footballer being well known for his love of women and his later battle with alcohol.

"George Best had his own human problems in life but he is ascending in his own way to another existence – that’s my image of him as a spiritual being, as an ascension, and he is leaving behind his Earthly delights," says Michael.

Painting an icon

Inside Out joined Michael as he revealed the subject of the picture to one of George's footballing peers and lifelong friend, Mike Summerbee.

When Browne met Best on canvas.

He thinks the man himself would have approved.

"I wouldn’t say he was an angel – in some ways.

"It’s very difficult to be a genius like George Best as a footballer.

"You can either go one way or another, you can get married and be happy and get on or you can go like George Best who was like a pop star.

"He could stop traffic, he was known all over the world. He would have approved of this."

Manchester roots

Like George Best, artist Michael Browne also has working class roots. 

He grew up in Manchester's Moss Side and was heavily influenced by attitudes and cultures from Africa and the West Indies.

He says of these works, "I used to do paintings of Moss Side and they have a very romantic, escapist view, but with a backdrop of a very unsettled past in that area".

So what is the secret of Michael Browne's success?

He says, "I've always looked at places I've been from Moss Side to football and boxing... my environment.

"Because I spend time in it, I can paint what I know."

His advice to aspiring artists is simple - "Let your canvas be your voice".

With his latest painting of George Best, that couldn't be more true...