A SACKED worker painted a picture of her famous artist boss as a bully who was prone to temper tantrums yesterday.

Angela Davis, 43, was sacked for being incapable of doing her job in April last year, after she spent 33 weeks signed off with depression.

She is claiming that North-East artist Mackenzie Thorpe, famous for his paintings of square sheep, dismissed her unfairly from his Arthaus gallery in Richmond, North Yorkshire.

Miss Davis told an employment tribunal in Newcastle that she became depressed after a combination of bullying from Mr Thorpe and a lack of trust from his wife, Susan, who ran the gallery.

The panel heard how the artist, now living in the US, had reduced Miss Davis to tears on several occasions, including one where she had asked him for a statue that she had bought and had been waiting to collect for two-and-half years.

"He screamed and shouted at me, the veins on his neck were bulging," she said.

"He told me he wasn't prepared to take a step back in his career to paint the statue for me. I left in floods of tears."

She said she and Mr Thorpe became friends after discovering their common background, with both coming from large Catholic families on Teesside and having to cope with dyslexia.

The relationship was so strong that the Thorpes had even asked her to look after their children when they went away.

It was out of this friendship that Mr Thorpe offered her the job in the gallery. Miss Davis said relations gradually soured because she was a successful saleswoman and the Thorpes resented paying her 10 per cent commission on the work she sold.

The tribunal continues today.