Paintings from Martos, 2005

Mary Saville, Lady Bagshaw, and her cat Binky, 2005, acrylic on canvas, 14x14 inches.

We walked Mary up to the painting room at Martos after breakfast each day, she would sit and hold Binky and tell me tales of Old England, repeating over and over how her Dad was so loving and her mum the same, how her mum loved colour so much, and how deeply they were thrown into grief when they all heard that her beloved brother was lost over the Channel in 1940. He joined the RAF too young she said.

She married late in life, to a handsome younger man, and they left Old England for the Costa del Sol in the '70s and built a hacienda high on a little hill at Sierrezuela overlooking Fuengirola and that wide horizon to Africa.

Raphael in his garden, 2005, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 24 inches; with the campanile of La Iglesia de San Amador below the terrace and the back road to Torredonmolinos and Jaen across the ravine with the farm house and the old man who stood and sat there for hours each day, no one knows why.

Moorish towers at Martos, 2005, acrylic on canvas, 42 x 30 inches.

The view from my room.

Martos sunset, 2005, acrylic on canvas, 42 x 30 inches.

View of Martos, 2005, acrylic on canvas, 11 x 7 feet.

This is the biggest of the lot by far, it was the painted to hang in the grand stairwell of Casa Martinez Cruz-Conde, seen here as a spot of white on the lower flank of La Penya.

La Penya and poster of St. Amador, 2005, acrylic on canvas, 12 x 24 inches.
La Penya is the rocky toe sticking up in the plains west of Jaen.

View of Andalucia, 2005, acylic on canvas, 12 x 36 inches.
A general view along the road from Martos to Granada.

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