Music producer Jonathan Rowlands, 84, mentioned purchasers usually struggled to search out the doorway to his 24-track basement studio, positioned in an alleyway off Fulham Road in Chelsea.
He determined to have his brand, of a smoking teddy bear in a swimsuit, painted on the door to make it extra simply identifiable.
Rowlands requested singer-songwriter Ian Dury, who was within the studio on the time, if he knew of any artists who may be capable of assist.
Dury, who recorded Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick, really useful painter Humphrey Ocean, a former scholar at an artwork school the place he had taught.
Ocean, who had additionally performed bass in Dury’s band, painted the door and included a monogrammed HO on the teddy bear’s satchel.
“Come the top of the lease I made a decision I cherished it, took it off its hinges pondering I used to be going to open up one other studio someplace, and naturally it remained packed up for years,” mentioned Rowlands, of Bakewell, Derbyshire.
He mentioned it was the late Nineteen Eighties when the studio closed and he had then forgotten in regards to the door.
His spouse prompt they need to promote it after he rediscovered it when clearing out their backyard shed, he mentioned.
“It had simply adopted me spherical as a packed up merchandise,” he mentioned.
The teddy bear is painted above a line of musical notation, with the door measuring 198cm by 75cm by 5cm.
“The door knob is within the incorrect place nevertheless it’s the proper place for the door,” mentioned Rowlands, commenting on the fixture’s place within the bear’s groin space.
The door, which has a pre-auction estimate of £1,000 to £1,500, is to be auctioned at Cheffins in Cambridge on October 26.