Almost a year to the day since Maltese artist John Borg Manduca passed away, an artist monograph dedicated to his art and life was launched at Westin Dragonara’s The Snug on February 19.
The lavish publication was penned on the initiative of Victor Grech, the artist’s only student, and the artist’s two sons, Juan and Stefan, who desired to share their father’s artistic legacy and its defining moments. They recalled endearing memories through an interview, carried also in the publication, that reveals more sides to the creative man, generally renowned for his seascape and landscape paintings.
Stefan’s words during the book launch expressed this very eloquently: “What a beautiful soul he was, an amazing and loving father, an army man, an artist and a true gentleman, old school.”
Being a keen sailor, Borg Manduca was utterly in love with the sea. His admiration for the work, in the same genre, of illustrious predecessors like Joseph M.W. Turner and Ivan Aivazovsky ran deep, thus producing sprawling paintings of sea and sky and their ever-changing humours. He took the 20th-century seascape genre to new heights, while cherishing the artistic legacy of previous centuries and reinterpreting it through a fresh and modern approach.
Grech took it upon himself to author the book and gel it together. The consultant paediatric cardiologist’s interests range from cosmology to science fiction and to practising martial arts, among other passions. He claims that a mid-life crisis was the launching pad for him to start painting.
“When I turned 40, I had this overwhelming urge to paint, an awakening. I had never painted or drawn anything,” he admits.
He eventually asked John Borg Manduca for artistic instruction.
“I was taught by a very nice, very flexible, very kind gentleman,” Grech says.
Sharing a mutual love for seascapes, the relationship between mentor and student went from strength to strength. This publication is also a demonstration of profound respect of the ‘apprentice’ towards his tutor.
Grech’s editorial decision to insert verses from English poet John Masefield’s epic poem Sea Fever is an enlightened one as the combination of the poet laureate’s words with the imagery and mood of the paintings sets the tone for the rest of the book, illustrating more eloquently Borg Manduca’s love for anything marine.
In his speech at the book launch, Richard England, whose wife, Myriam, happens to be Borg Manduca’s sister, elaborated on this: “The poet’s quotations and John’s canvases harmonise together like the individual instruments of an orchestra to produce a resounding and rewarding audiovisual concerto.”
Being a keen sailor, Borg Manduca was utterly in love with the sea
England also emphasised the improvisatory abilities of the artist who, according to Borg Manduca’s son Stefan’s words in the interview, generally used the paintbrush only to sign the finished work. The dexterity in his father’s use of the palette knife was his signature technique.
“Utilising his [Borg Manduca’s] palette knife like a jazz drummer handles his drumsticks, he manages to render the sea in its many moods… sometimes vertiginous and vigorous with fearful wrathful waves and at others still, calm and motionless,” England remarked.
The book also explores Borg Manduca’s relationship with other artists such as his brother-in-law England, Gabriel Caruana, Richard Demarco and his collaboration with Scottish artist and poet Ian Hamilton Finlay, which he considered as a defining moment in his artistic career.
“His [Borg Manduca’s] collaboration with Ian Hamilton Finlay, where he embarked on a series of works, which showed other perspectives of him; one of them was his military side, being a career military man. There was a series of inks which depicted tanks and submarines and which were published in a book – this was a particular defining moment in my opinion,” Juan explains in the interview published in the book.
John Borg Manduca – Landscapes and Seascapes, published by the NGO Save and Support Trust, is a must for Maltese art aficionados and collectors of Melitensia. Grech’s eclectic approach in its authorship provides a freshly unorthodox perspective on a Maltese artist who was surely one of the main protagonists of the Maltese 20th-century seascape genre.
All proceeds from the sale of this book will go to the NGOs Save & Support Trust and Beating Hearts Malta.