March 24, 2011
Palazzo Falson is organising a public lecture and watercolour demonstration by John Martin Borg on Sunday 3rd April, 2011 at 10am. The lecture will discuss the history of watercolour painting, illustrating important examples in this medium including watercolours from the Palazzo Falson collection. Following the lecture, artist John Martin Borg will demonstrate how he builds up a watercolour painting. The lecture and demo will last approximately 2 hours and the public is invited to attend free of charge. Bookings are not required as seats will be allocated on a first come first served basis.
John Martin Borg took up watercolour painting after graduating in Pharmacy from the University of Malta back in 1977 and exhibited his first works in 1979.Since then his works have gained recognition both locally and abroad.
He is mostly renowned for his maritime pictures and atmospheric landscapes. Working mostly on location his watercolours gradually developed into studies of moods and poetic expressions. He broke new grounds with his abstract and religious works intertwining them seamlessly together to produce individual distinctive works, easily identifiable with the artist.
The works of John Martin Borg are locally found in a number of important places including the Museum of Contemporary Arts, the Maritime Museum, the Cathedral Museum Mdina, the presidential Palace at San Anton and in the reserve collection of the Museum of Fine Arts. His works have also been exhibited abroad at the Mall gallery and the Royal Watercolour Society in London, at the UNESCO Head Quarters in Paris, The Castel in Heidelberg Germany; as well as in Cologne, Munich, Stuttgart, Salzburg, Paris, San Tropez, Tunisia, Dubai and Florida (USA). His watercolours are also found at the World Health Organisation centre in Geneva and the Commonwealth Centre in London. One of his paintings forms part of the Royal Collection in London. This had been presented to the Royal Couple by the President of Malta, His Excellency Dr. Censu Tabone in May 1992. Another of his paintings was presented to His Holiness Pope Benedict xvi on His visit to Malta in April 2010, by His Excellency Dr. George Abela, President of Malta.
Palazzo Falson Historic House Museum has a significant collection of watercolour paintings by various artists including Edward Lear and Edward Caruana Dingli.
