Charles McCall death location (1907 to 1989)

 

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...