Visualise On Your Wall

Born Campbelltown, argyll, 5 Dec; died Torrance, 17 Feb. Painter in oil, watercolour and pencil; animals, landscape and birds. Son of a Glasgow doctor, he attended Glasgow University and studied art at the Slade School, London and in Paris under Boulanger, Fremlet and Lefevre at the Academie Julian. After a visit to Texas he spent some years at the village of Midhurst in Surrey before returning to Glasgow, finally settling in Stirlingshire. Never much in sympathy with the theories held by most of the Glasgow Boys so is now regarded as a member of the Glasgow School rather than a Glasgow Boy. His art was intimate, undecorative, sensitive and elusive, his draughtsmanship and technique sound but not brilliant. The subdued tones and bold brushwork that he used at the beginning of his career gradually gave way to higher tones, more fluid brushwork and more sophisticated design. Latterly this liquidity is at the expense of the penetrating characteristics of his earlier work. In his pencil drawings he often added watercolour in a free manner with extensive use of bodycolour and occasionally pastel. Exhibited in Buffalo, St Louis, Stuttgart and Ghent as well as at the RA (21), RSA (86), GI (120), AAS and London. Represented in Glasgow AG, Paisley AG, City of Edinburgh collection, Gracefield AG (Dumfries), RSA.

Elected ARSA 1913, RSA 1923, HRA 1933 and PRSA 1933-44. Knighted in 1937.