I don’t have
many paintings on my walls (don’t have the wall space) but I have one by
Charles. He’s not well known but occasionally you see his original paintings
for sale in auction houses and even on ebay (see
photo.) I thought I’d take a couple of photos of his studio in posh
Belgravia where he lived, worked and exhaled
his last lung-full of oxygen.
I like his small intimate interior scenes of
people brushing their hair, sewing, reading, looking in the mirror. He made a
living from painting almost from the beginning. He worked at a law company
until he was 23 when he won a scholarship to Edinburgh College. Scholarships in
the mid-1930s took him extensively around Europe, and for much of 1937 he
studied in Paris.
Aged 38 he married and began showing his work in
exhibitions in the Britain, USA and Canada. He died aged 82 in this small
building where I’m stood. Not sure if it's a flat or an annex but it's valued
at £2.1 million presently. The sky light windows would have tipped precious
sunlight over his canvases. Charles's wife wrote a book about their live
together Interior with Figure: Life and
Painting of Charles McCall but it's too expensive. At the time of writing
this one of his painting is for sale on ebay for
£2,900. I did a salute and left.
An original painting on Ebay...