MICRO-ARTIST Graham Short who is best known for his secret engravings of Jane Austen’s portrait on the new £5 notes, will be giving a talk in Solihull.
The Birmingham artist will be visiting Alderbrook School on October 3, to talk about his career as an engraver.
The 70 year-old – who owns an engraving business in the Jewellery Quarter – is the ancestor of Sir Francis Short, a renowned Victorian hand engraver.
Graham began his working life as a mouse catcher in a factory and following a six-year apprenticeship with an engraving company, he set up his one-man business in 1974.
His services to his esteemed clientele include creating letterheads for the royal residences and the House of Commons, and personalised stationary for the royal family.
The artist sent the nation into a frenzy last year when four of his tender-based portraits went into circulation, each worth £50,000.
Graham carved the tiny portrait onto four of the polymer £5 notes and then spent one in each British country.
And the money-man donated a fifth note to the Jane Austen Centre in Bath on the bicentenary of her death in July.
Three of the circulating notes have been found, and the hunt for the remaining fiver is still on.
One turned up in a Christmas card while another was donated to charity.
Also among his most impressive works is his engraving of the Lord’s Prayer on the head of a gold pin, which can only be seen through a powerful microscope.
The masterpiece earned the Graham international fame and was followed by his portrait of The Queen, on a speck of gold in the eye of a needle, which sold for £100,000.
