In 1981–82 Jonah served a year’s fellowship at Gregynog Hall, the University of Wales’s residential study centre near Newtown, Powys. He wished to spend the time developing his watercolour painting, a medium in which he had delved only intermittently for many years. The result was a substantial body of work of which Homage to Marianne North is a striking example. It pays tribute to the Victorian botanist and painter whose meticulous records of exotic plants and landscapes around the world fill a gallery at Kew Gardens.
