The obituary notice of Mark VANDENESCHEN

I new Mark in the sixties when I lived in Honiton. Once when I visited him in his studio in Dunkeswell he was painting a beautiful African scene of elephants and an old lady. I said to him that I felt that if I touched her hand it would feel warm. He replied with a smile, "Don't you dare - it's still wet." I asked him how long it took to paint a picture like that and he replied, "Forty years of hard work and study."
I believe he was professor of Art at Munich Academy before the war, but left to come to England. I know he spent a lot of his time on trips to Africa where he painted heads of state in many countries. He says that on more that one occasion he had not finished a portrait before a coup brought him a new customer. To me he was the epitome of a great artist and a very likeable man.