SOUTHPORT artist Max Eden whose work was exhibited alongside paintings by Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall has died at the age of 87.

The former Southport College teacher inspired hundreds of students, including comedian Alexei Sayle and Soft Cell singer Marc Almond, with his tales of meeting some of the world’s most famous painters.

He passed away last Tuesday morning leaving his wife Valerie, daughter Jane and son John.

Sayle, who was taught by Eden at the age of 17 and has one of his Spanish landscapes hanging on the wall of his house, last night described him as “inspirational”.

He said: “He was remarkable. To find him at Southport College was like getting a whiff of the Boulevard Montparnasse.

“His clothes were different and he drove a Citroen DS. He brought news of a world beyond the North West.

“It was a real privilege to have been taught by him.”

Born in St Helens, Eden studied at the Liverpool College of Art before spending a year at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris.

He was introduced to Picasso in the 1950s in the French artists’ commune of Cagnes-sur-Mer where the Spanish painter had a ceramics studio “so small he had to have his pictures coming from downstairs and moving upwards through the ceiling,” Eden revealed in an interview with the Daily Post last year.