Jeremy Karpel

TK International was founded in October 1998 as a boutique top-end estate agency, and was originally called Talisman Karpel after the founding partners, Ronnie Talisman and Jeremy Karpel. Our initial focus was on house and luxury apartment sales within the greater NW3, NW6, NW11, and N6 areas. We rebranded approximately five years later as the business expanded, and new partners came on board.

This expansion saw the creation of both our lettings business, which worked in tandem with sales, and a keener interest in the wider flat sales market.

I studied interior design and architecture, and so we’ve been able to work closely with developers, architects and sophisticated owner-occupiers who have had the vision to create new exciting homes, whether speculatively or for their own use, and have the advantage of recognising the hidden value of properties, because of this interest.

What many don’t realise is that art has always  run alongside  the business

For more information on Jeremy’s upcoming exhibition, check out our diary page for May

But what many don’t realise is that art has always run alongside the business. After successfully passing my A Levels, I left school in 1980 and completed an art foundation course at Watford Art School. My intention was always to work within the feature film industry, specifically in art direction and set design, and to this end, I gained my BA in Interior Design and Architecture.

This qualification gained me an entrée into Warner Brothers as a draughtsman and trainee set designer working at Pinewood Studios on films such as Little Shop of Horrors and A View to a Kill.

But as Sterling strengthened in the mid 1980s, US based film companies found it too expensive to make films in the UK and work became very scarce, particularly for new boys like me, so I had to go and find a  ‘proper job’ and ended up leaving the industry and found a job as a negotiator here in Hampstead.

I’ve always drawn. My earliest memories are of me drawing everything and anything, and using any material to create it with – and on! The apple was never going to fall too far from the tree as my late mother, Loretta Karpel, was a wonderful sketch artist and fashion designer who had trained at St Martin’s.

I do not profess in any way to be a serious artist, just someone who likes to express himself artistically through a pencil, a biro and an occasional black felt-pen. However, as I’ve got older, I have built up the courage to work with other mediums and my new exhibition, Life’s Not Black and White, opening this month at Burgh House, shows my move towards acrylic and oil painting and the vibrant use of colour on a larger canvas. I hope you enjoy the paintings, and that they help get rid of the notion that estate agents are simply one-dimensional money-oriented people – you should never judge a book by its cover!