AN award-winning artist who fought serious illness in recent years has donated his prizewinning painting to the Malvern Gazette’s Ease The Pain campaign.

Ian Fearnside’s picture, Corner of a Field near Malvern, won an award in an arts competition for the over-60s run by the Elderly Accommodation Council.

The painting was named best landscape in the experienced artist category.

Now he has donated it to the Friends of Malvern Community Hospital, who plan to make it the big prize in a fund-raising event later this year.

Maureen Williams of the Friends said: “We’re delighted that Mr Fearnside has agreed to donate this painting.

“He is a very well known artist locally and I’m sure there will be a lot of interest in the picture.”

Mr Fearnside, who for many years ran an art shop on Belle Vue Terrace, has been dogged by ill-health for the last few years, including a diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer, which only gave him six months to live.

The Ease the Pain campaign aims to raise £60,000 to buy an imaging device for a new pain clinic at the Worcester Road hospital.

The C-arm image intensifier is an X-ray device vital for the precise delivery of painkilling injections.

Once installed in Malvern, it will mean patients, many of them elderly, will no longer have to travel to clinics in Kidderminster or Evesham for treatment.

The appeal total currently stands at £39,100, but you can help boost that sum by supporting the Friends’ shopping experience at the hospital tomorrow (Saturday), starting at 2pm.

The shopping experience will feature stalls selling a number of items such as scarves and handbags.

There will also be a range of home-made cakes and cream teas to enjoy.

Are you organising a fund-raiser for the appeal?

Call Robert Hale on 01905 742283 or send an email to rh@malverngazette.

co.uk