Three months ago, on February 10, I lost a friend. Malta lost a prolific artist of great talent.

Born and bred in Valletta, Charles Cassar (pictured) began his artistic training at the Malta School of Art in Valletta from where he obtained a four-year scholarship to further his art studies in England, at Croydon College of Art. He was later admitted at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome from where he was awarded the Diploma di Licenza and the Medaglia D’Oro.

In 1968, he came back to Malta to continue his career in teaching art and held his first personal exhibition in 1969 at the Museum of Archaeology in Valletta. From then on, he never looked back with exhibitions of his work in Malta and abroad in several countries.

His dual role – that of teaching art and of being an artist of note himself was the hallmark of his life. Even after retiring from the Education Department where his career ended as a headmaster, he continued teaching art in his studio in Kappara.

This is not an accolade for Charles’s artistic talents. Many others, who are certainly more qualified than me in this respect, have done that and will probably keep on doing it; admiring his daring use of vibrant colours and his permanent quest seeking originality in the use of different materials.

Besides his artistic talent, there were other aspects of his personality that intrigued me. Much like me, he was highly opinionated and many a time we had to agree to disagree.

We met regularly as part of a group of friends, together arguing jovially on anything under the sun and beyond, as we were actually doing barely two weeks before his sudden and premature demise.

He rarely shifted from his position, whether it was on the Maltese or Italian political scene or his beloved football club, Milan.

In fact, for a number of years he served as president of the Milan Supporters Club in Malta: one of those secondary roles in his life that made him such an all-rounder.

His direct experience in Malta’s education set-up – first as teacher and later as assistant head in a girls’ Lyceum and head of a boys’ secondary school – gave him an uncanny understanding of childhood and youth problems, parental idiosyncrasies, official bureaucracy and all the other pitfalls that afflict our education system.

Discussions about this subject never lacked interesting anecdotes, of course.

Today Charles no longer meets us. The group of friends in which he was so much part of the scene still meets, but his absence is palpable. His loving wife, Rita, is always welcome and together we try to overcome the grief his tragic loss, while keeping his memory alive.

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