Saturday 5 June 2010

Saturday

This morning we went to an art exhibition by Ian Hay, a Colchester artist whose output covers nearly 50 years. The exhibition is in a lovely old house used as a museum and art gallery. It has a restaurant and an attractive garden. It was another lovely day and we had coffee in the garden. We used to know the elderly man, John, who was born and grew up in the house in the nineteen twenties and thirties. He came from an extremely artistic family - his aunt married Lucien Pissaro, son of the famous Camille Pissaro, and an artist himself. John, who died some years ago, had a flat in the town and it was full of the most beautiful works of art; sculpture, paintings, sketches, and other valuable items. He kept some paintings hidden for fear it might become known he had them and they would be stolen. It was a strange feeling, having coffee in the garden where John and his brothers and sisters had played as children, though nowadays their cries would have been drowned out by the noise of passing traffic and the building going on behind.

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