At the time, the young boy whom I was could only subscribe to this emancipatory bubbling. With the help of artists' example such as Elton John's, I was allowed to discover that what I had understood that I was could escape the curse of a unique and isolated case. And in addition, that this difference was no longer the stigma of a frowned upon, infamous and filthy illness, but of a human emancipation that could shine brightly, as demonstrated by Elton John throughout his performances and his records. On the other hand, I was also idealistic and radical like any other teenager my age obviously, being in search of systematic breaks with the rules and taboos of previous generations. Hence, my own singularity fueled by this rebellion so specific to youth, and boosted by the courageous public claim expressed by Elton John about his sexuality in 1976*, could only lead to nourishing an unconditional passion for the singer and his music.

Between 1972 and 1976 I loved Elton John’s music so much that I painted a lot of things, inspired by his looks and his albums, whenever I could, basically whenever I was not sleeping or doing my school homework. And this work opened the doors for me of an extraordinary opportunity : in December 1973 I was lucky enough to meet him in person, after that a set of my gouaches was presented to him. Here is how that happened.

A few months earlier, through painstaking research in the British music press, I had succeeded in locating Elton John’s mansion. The Press sometimes published photos or revealed snippets of information which, by cross-checking, gave clues to the identity of the location where the musician lived. From Nice, I had thus been able to carry out a “virtual” site tracking of the area where Elton John's house was. That was in Surrey, about thirty miles south-west of London. During the summer of 1973, I took advantage of a holiday stay in the British capital to indulge in "live" scouting, which then lasted several days, since I only knew the name of the locality where the house presumably stood.