Morocco

I lived in Morocco for a year in 1967 and then almost a year in 1979 and finally a month or two in 1983 and 1986. One of these photo was taken during my last stay there in a wonderfully colourful bazaar called Boutique Majid in Tangiers which inspired three or four of my favorite paintings of Interiors.

Also in Morocco I visited the ancient capital of Fes. I had never seen anything like the Tannery, whose smell was as famous as the Indonesian fruit Durian, whose perfume is so strong it is not permitted on an aeroplane. The Tannery was at least as strong as that even though it was out of doors. I was inspired enough to paint it out in the open over four hours two days running, in a temperature just in the high nineties, and as can be seen in this photo there was no shade. At the end of four hours on each occasion I was just conscious enough to stagger down thirty steps to the underground spring beneath me, where I revived myself by pouring blissfully freezing cold water all over me.