For a lad brought up on a Shropshire farm with no artistic background in his family and even less artistic talent in his fingertips (his own assessment), John Bloxham has done pretty well in the art world.

You wouldn't know it - there is nary a fanfare, unveiling or cake n candle to mark the occasion - but John has clocked up 30 years as an art dealer and exhibiter on St John's Hill, Battersea.

What John has done is create something out of nothing - a West End-standard gallery in Wandsworth (have that, Aristotle), one that exhibits some of the most exciting UK artists alive. Because when you have centuries of Van Gogh, Rubens, Whistler, Rembrandt and Picasso to swot up on and obsess about, it is easy for an art fan to clean forget about living artists.

Don't worry, John did it for years, he says, focussing too sharply on 18th and 19th century paintings - mainly watercolours - at his first art venture at 223 St John's Hill, which he opened with his friend Nick Underwood-Thompson in 1968.

Now he displays almost exclusively the living - see the sheer brilliance of Martin Fuller and Willi Kissmer that hang now at number 129.

It was one of Bloxham's mentors that caused this sea change: "Carel Weight was a great man, the artists' artist, and he taught them all at Royal College - David Hockney, Peter Blake - he lived down the road and he became a great friend.

"He pushed me to show contemporary art and I soon found it much more fun dealing with dead artists. My first show in 1995 was with a student of his, Linda Sutton, and it was a joy. You can go to their studio, see where the art is produced and absolutely know it isn't a fake."

Weight would have been Bloxham's first show, but he died before the idea was seen through, and the Sutton exhibition in 1995 was the rebirth of the John Bloxham Gallery as it is now.

Bloxham, 58, rolled down the hill from 223 to 117 in 1978, before plumping for the middle, a la the Grand Old Duke of York, 10 years later. Bloxham says he has missed nothing from staying local rather than moving to the West End, and may not have fitted in anyway: "Some of them are very pristine and marble and there's someone sniffing at you. But I like people coming in here, with their kids, their dogs.

"It's a nice place to just drop in. One of my favourite times is at night when I can sit at the back and look at what's on the wall, especially in the winter when it is dark outside and the lights are on and the pictures are glowing. I've got my library, I might dip into that."

Bloxham's acid test of what to exhibit is whether or not he would hang it in his Earlsfield home. He also insists on art with "skill and application and craft" and he is more likely to push a buyer out of a deal than push one into it, if he feels they are are unsuited to the piece.

All of this reflects a very grounded chap, who is happy being just one conduit in the life of thousands of pieces of art. Nor does he have much concern for having a legacy' (setting him apart from many an artist), as he has no inclination to push either of his children - Christabel, 8 or Simeon, 6 - into taking over the gallery.

"I have been very fortunate to have lasted so long in art," he says, "art is the antidote to life, it lifts your spirits and if I dropped dead tomorrow I would die happy. I've got to do some great things and meet some great people and I've enjoyed every minute.

John Bloxham Gallery, 129 St John's Hill, SW11 1TG, now showing mixed artist show, call 020 7924 7500.

And One More Thing...

q If John had to choose one painting for the gallery walls? Crucifixion (1632) by Velasquez - his biggest art hero.

q John has hosted the Chinese and Korean ambassadors and the Duchess of York.

q His most exciting new find is a young Battersea-based Mexican, Magdalena Velazquez (no relation. We think).

q John helped open the first disco in Turkey in 1968. Fact.

q Despite being teenager in the 60s, John was not a hippy. "More of a trendy," he says.