... on his birthday at Walberswick. Charles Rennie Mackintosh came here in 1914, with his wife Margaret Macdonald, for rest and recuperation. Shortly after their arrival, WW1 broke out so they decided to stay for a while. However, the locals regarded Mackintosh with some suspicion: his habit of walking the country lanes in his long cape and deerstalker with his pencil and sketchbook in hand; his Glaswegian accent; his correspondence from Austria and Germany, albeit from fellow architects and designers. He was accused of being a spy, went to London to clear his name with the War Office and never returned to Suffolk.
During his stay at Walberswick he began work on 40 illustrations, exquisite botanical flower watercolours, originally to be published in a book in Germany. This, of course, never came to fruition.
I bought a print of 'Petunia' on one of our visits to Clare in Glasgow. http://www.huntsearch.gla.ac.uk/cgi-bin/foxweb/huntsearch_Mackintosh/LargeImage.fwx?catno=41009&filename=crm/41009.jpg
I thought perhaps the inclusion of Margaret's initials (MMM) on the painting indicated that she collaborated in the work but apparently it means simply that she was there when Mackintosh executed it.
I took two, one into the light and one with the light behind me - this was the most dramatic and also 'the right way round'!
Do you like the petunia watercolour?