Husband and Wife, 60 years in paint
Ant Fox
A year ago I finished a painting for my father of his favourite photo of my mother. The original picture was taken in 1957 on their honeymoon in Birkenhead. The photo has been next to his lounge chair in later years and been the cause of many daydreams of their years together, the reason why I decided to paint it for him.
On the 2nd of May this year my father past away at the age of 80 and was buried along with his favourite photo of his wife. In an impossibly futile attempt to redress the loss, I produced a painting for my mother, of my father, taken on that same afternoon, in Birkenhead of March 1957. The implied invitation of Dad saving her a seat next to him on the bench is not wasted on Mom.
Both paintings now hang next to each other in the home they shared for 60 years.