Lot Blog 4

Devastatingly sad news in June of the final demise of Quercy Recherche, that truly excellent revue on all things Quercynois which has struggled on through many travails since 1974, thanks to the extraordinary energy, dedication and enthusiasm of one man, Jean-Luc Obereiner, who deserves some kind of medal for his contribution to the preservation and explanation of a culture and patrimoine that one knows will be the poorer for the passing of QR.

Nothing was out of bounds for this erudite magazine which covered anything and everything, from the Resistance to caves, to botany, to caselles, to building techniques, to roof shapes and down to even smaller and more intricate details like lintel decoration, drawing on expertise around the region and beyond.

I could not have written my own book without it. I would not know half of what I do know about the area without it. There will now be much left I'll never know without it. I feel quite bereft.

The spirit of the magazine lives on - so far- in the open air museum at Cuzals, which was the brainchild of Quercy Recherche and a practical and educational demonstration of some of the things they wrote about.

Recently it looked as if funding had finally been found to keep the magazine alive, but sadly this seems to have dried up. The Association continues in offices at Labastide-Murat and there is vague talk of a web-site which would be wonderful.

Meanwhile all we can do is mourn the magazine's demise and pay a grateful and well deserved tribute to M Obereiner.

A new exhibition of paintings opened recently in Cahors and is worth a visit for anyone who happens to be there from any time from now until October. In the museum named after him, there is a retrospective of around one hundred Henri Martin paintings collected from nearly 50 museums and towns in France.

Unlike many painters, Martin knew success in his own lifetime, possibly because his art is so accessible. He was also much in demand for public works of art and one can see his work in such illustrious buildings as the Capitole at Toulouse, the Elysée Palace in Paris and many more. His fame spread far and wide and he is particularly appreciated in Japan. Moreover, so frequently did he paint the Lot that, as the article in La Depeche says, Lotois are sometimes able to recognise their own relations in the paintings.