Mackintosh's last works to go on display

Published on 23/10/2005 00:23

A MAJOR exhibition is to be devoted to the paintings of the last years of Charles Rennie Mackintosh which were made while the artist was in France.

It will bring together almost all of the watercolours and sketches Mackintosh made at the picturesque Mediterranean waterfront of Port Vendres.

As well as works depicting mountain landscapes, farm buildings, hill towns, ports and local flora, the letters Mackintosh wrote to his wife Margaret will be included in the exhibition, at Edinburgh's Dean Gallery.

Richard Calvocoressi, director of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, said: "We are very pleased that, through the generosity of lenders and in particular the Hunterian Art Gallery, we have been able to bring together virtually all the paintings Mackintosh made in France towards the end of his life. These are ravishing pictures and this is the first time that so many of them have been shown."

Towards the end of his life Mackintosh gave up his principal career as an architect, moved to the south of France and devoted himself to watercolours, producing about 40 before his death in 1928.

Alone in France and only able to speak a little French, Mackintosh wrote daily to Margaret. The letters document the first indication of the terminal cancer that was to force him to return to London at the end of 1927.