Portrait artist, 87, (and friends) stage exhibition

A WOMAN who has painted in oils for about 80 years and made her living painting portraits, is staging an exhibition at Watlington library.

Margaret Peach, 87, who lives in the town, has created In Search of Medieval Cuxham. It comprises her own paintings and those by friends.

She graduated from Reading University in 1960 with a degree in Fine Art and lived in Kelso, Scotland, with her husband, Brian, for about 40 years.

A back injury made her move to Watlington in 2012 to be near her daughters, Diana and Alison. Mrs Peach said: “I earned my living painting portraits, I used to stay with people and paint for families. It was very old-fashioned, I remember reading about it when I was a child.”

During the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties, Mrs Peach travelled the British Isles painting private portraits.

Mrs Peach said: “When I moved to Oxfordshire, I used to take the bus through Cuxham because I couldn’t really drive, and I fell in love with the village.

“It reminded me of Ednam, which neighboured Kelso. It was a little village built around a stream and it was untouched because there was such complete windfall from the mountaintop. I started doing little paintings and then we put this [exhibition] together for the library, using my paintings and friends’ contributions and a book for local people who live in this area.”

Mrs Peach added that due to her age, she considers herself part of the “non-graduate” community.

She said: “Not many people in my age group went to university. Very few of us have got degrees and it’s tempting to downplay that because it makes other people feel like my work has nothing to do with them.

“It’s such a shame, because these are the very people who would have loved academia if they had the chance. I was living in Anglesey, Wales, before I went to university, where education is highly valued, and I went to university on a scholarship.”

Mrs Peach also painted for the Henley Royal Regatta Gallery from 2012 to 2020.She added: “When I was studying in Reading, I fell in love with this part of the country. I came to Nettlebed, to the woods a lot. I enjoy meeting people, seeing how they think, and trying to capture the history of the area.”

The exhibition runs until March.