Though she accomplished much else, Molly Parkin has died, at the age of 93 after suffering from Alzheimer’s, as an acknowledged artist, which is what she had really wanted from life. She had passed through fashion, journalism, writing fiction and nonfiction, notoriety and foulmouthed fame, on television and off, plus more than 50 dwelling places, two husbands, and encounters with men beyond enumeration.
But art – paintings super-aware of emotion in a landscape – was her first and last love, and her serious talent. A male artist living so expansively could expect to be appreciated for surviving into old age, the loss of muse and money, the bottles and the cigarettes, the energy invested in the constant pursuit of sex and in telling the world about it. For a woman to have stayed that course is still novel – and quite something for a girl from the Welsh valleys.
