TRIBUTES have been paid to Swindon-born artist Glynn Uzzell who died in a gas explosion at his Portuguese home.

Glynn, 84, and his partner of 40 years Paul Fonk were killed at their Caramujeira home on June 23.

Glynn, a renowned painter, who grew up in Pinehurst, worked as a teacher before moving to the Algarve where he set up his studio at a renovated farmhouse.

Glynn previously wrote: “My move to Portugal. Had a profound effect on my work. The intense white light of the Algarve, the colours of the rocks, the vegetation and the presence of the sea, transformed my palette and loosened my approach.

“There I developed a close relationship with my immediate environment and the landscape around me, the feel of a specific place at a particular time, the mood of a particular moment.”

Despite living abroad, Glynn would return to England several times a year to visit his sister Wendy Curtis, 78, who lives in Liddington.

She said: “He was my brother and I loved him very, very much.

“We would always be in touch with each other, always writing and we’d always visit each other.

“Glynn and Paul were really good together and Paul was like another brother to me.”

As an artist, Glynn was largely unknown in the UK, exhibiting in Germany, Switzerland and Portugal.

His work, much of which was based on the Algarve landscape, was sold as part of public and private collections.

Born in 1930, Glynn, came from a family of railwaymen but he chose a different path, studying at Headlands Grammar School. He then went to the Institute of Education, London and Goldsmith’s College. This led to a career working as an artist and teacher.

He taught in London, then at International School, in Geneva, Switzerland. There he devised an international art and design programme for International Bacca -laureate.

Glynn was asked to become a chief examiner but decided to focus on being a painter and printmaker.

He moved to Portugal with Paul in 1979 and his last exhibition was in Portimão.

The artist was a member of the Chelsea Arts Club and was sponsored by the late actor Clive Dunn, a friend and painting companion in the Algarve.

In recent years, Glynn had suffered ill-health receiving treatment for a heart condition at John Radcliffle Hospital in Oxford.

Wendy said he was enjoying a new lease of life after the hospital fitted him with a defibrillator.

She will be travelling to Portugal today to scatter her brother’s ashes.