Editing Charles Rennie Mackintosh (section)

==Later life==

Later in life, disillusioned with architecture, Mackintosh worked largely as a watercolourist, painting numerous landscapes and flower studies (often in collaboration with Margaret, with whose style Mackintosh's own gradually converged). They moved to the [[Suffolk]] village of [[Walberswick]] in 1914. There Mackintosh was suspected of being a German spy and briefly arrested in 1915 during [[World War I]].<ref>{{cite news |author=Tait |first=Gordan |date=29 June 2004 |title=Rennie Mackintosh locked up as 'German spy' |url=https://www.scotsman.com/news-2-15012/rennie-mackintosh-locked-up-as-german-spy-1-537041 |access-date=22 August 2011 |newspaper=The Scotsman}}</ref>

By 1923, the Mackintoshes had moved to [[Port Vendres]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.port-vendres.com/uk/page_ic.php?CatID=126&ArtID=160&them=3000 |title=Port-Vendres, official site of the city and the tourist office – Official website |publisher=Port-vendres.com |access-date=27 March 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110715104834/http://www.port-vendres.com/uk/page_ic.php?CatID=126&ArtID=160&them=3000 |archive-date=15 July 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref> a Mediterranean coastal town in southern [[France]] with a warm climate that was a comparably cheaper location in which to live. Mackintosh had entirely abandoned architecture and design and concentrated on watercolour painting. He was interested in the relationships between man-made and naturally occurring landscapes and created a large portfolio of architecture and landscape watercolour paintings. Many of his paintings depict Port Vendres, a small port near the Spanish border, and the landscapes of [[Roussillon]]. The local Charles Rennie Mackintosh Trail details his time in Port Vendres and shows the paintings and their locations.<ref>[http://www.crmackintoshfrance.com/crm-mackintosh-trail.html The Mackintosh Trail], ''L'association Charles Rennie Mackintosh en Roussillon.''</ref> The couple remained in France for two years, before being forced to return to London in 1927 due to illness.

[[File:Porchester Square, City of Westminster, London.jpg|thumb|12 Porchester Square in the foreground on the left, and number 26 in the far distance on the right.]]
That year, Mackintosh had developed a lump in his tongue and a doctor friend in Port Vendres recommended that he return to London for treatment.<ref name=QuestForCRM>{{cite book | author=Cairney, John | title=The Quest for Charles Rennie Mackintosh | publisher=Luath Press | year=2004 }}</ref> In London, after a diagnosis of [[oral cancer|tongue cancer]], a friend [[Jessie Newbery]] arranged for treatment at [[Westminster Hospital]] where the lump was surgically removed.<ref name=QuestForCRM /> Their friends [[Randolph Schwabe|Randolph & Birdie Schwabe]] found a home for Mackintosh to convalesce on Willow Road in Hampstead, where he could sit under a willow tree that reminded him of [[Sauchiehall Street]].<ref name=QuestForCRM /> Another friend [[Margaret Morris (dancer)|Margaret Morris]] visited him there, and firstly tried to help him with voice exercises to strengthen his voice which had been weakened by the surgery, but when that failed she tried to teach him sign language.<ref name=QuestForCRM /> A dispute with the upstairs neighbours in Hampstead forced Mackintosh and his wife to quickly seek other lodgings, and another friend [[Desmond Chapman-Huston]] offered his home at [[Porchester Square|12 Porchester Square]], [[Bayswater]], returning the hospitality that they had shown him whenever he had visited them in Glasgow.<ref name=QuestForCRM /> After a relapse Mackintosh was admitted to a nursing home just along the road at 26 Porchester Square where he died on 10 December 1928 at the age of 60.<ref name=QuestForCRM /> He was cremated the next day at [[Golders Green Crematorium]] in London. His ashes were scattered, in accordance with his wishes, over the Mediterranean at Port Vendres from one of the rocks he had painted.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkkwNvKMVs4 "Video 3/3 :Charles Rennie Mackintosh – A Modern Man" (1996) ].</ref><ref>[https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6xwhs1 BBC Scotland Documentary, 2018 ''Mackintosh: Glasgow's Neglected Genius''].</ref>