William Crosbie The Devoted Creative
William Crosbie The Devoted Creative 1 – 25 April 2020
16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ +44 (0) 131 558 1200 scottish-gallery.co.uk
Foreword Guy Peploe 3 The Devoted Creative Ewan Mundy 5 The Artist’s Artist Mary Cross 11 A New Era Guy Peploe 14 Illustrated Works 16 Biography 108
William Crosbie at work on the Atomic Mural, Festival of Britain, Exhibition of Industrial Power, Hall of the Future, 1951 (Sir Basil Spence Archive) Copyright Š RCAHMS 2
Foreword Guy Peploe
“My devotion to the muse and the life it has led me has meant I have enjoyed richness of texture not readily to hand for the majority of my fellow citizens.” William Crosbie, 1990
Crosbie did enjoy the life he led, the distinct, challenging life of the devoted creative. He had a fine, enquiring mind, was deeply read and was immersed in the liberal arts; he had great technical gifts and was happy to apply these far beyond the confines of studio and easel but at the same time he recognised that a painter needed to paint and to exhibit. This determination to be engaged with the hurly burly and a prodigious work ethic have left much to be rediscovered and when his widow Anne moved from the home they shared in Hampshire last year we felt that so much unseen work deserved an airing, alongside one of his many wonderful model boats. We are grateful to the family for their faith and assistance and to Ewan Mundy for his fine introduction.
“I painted a large mural for the Festival of Industrial Power, Glasgow, in genuine fluorescent paint. It was 40 feet long and 15 feet high assembled in pieces of 14 x 4 done in my studio in sections and finally mounted in situ to be finished in the Kelvin Hall in one week. The whole painting took four weeks to complete. This was a genuine, original effort both in technique and composition. The subject was the sun as a source of energy and split into three sections; miners, gardeners and fishermen.” William Crosbie, 1951 3
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The Devoted Creative Ewan Mundy
William Crosbie was born in Hankow, China in 1915 (now part of the modern city of Wuhan). His parents were both Scots: Crosbie senior was from the Borders and his mother from the west Highlands. His father was a partner in an engineering firm and the family lived in China until 1926, when they returned to Glasgow. Crosbie finished his schooling at Glasgow Academy and finally persuaded his parents to allow him to enroll at The Glasgow School of Art in 1932. There he thrived and in his final year he was awarded the Haldane Travelling Scholarship, which allowed him to travel to Paris. The outside invigilator in the final year was Laura Knight, who awarded Crosbie an unprecedented 100% for his drawing and draughtmanship. In Paris he entered the École des BeauxArts and shortly afterwards gained entry through examination to the studio of Fernand Léger. At a later date he also had the opportunity to have drawing lessons with Aristide Maillol. Crosbie described his time in Léger’s studio ‘as one of my proudest experiences’. He had been a stonemason before becoming a painter, and Crosbie felt that this background allowed Léger to understand the importance of structure in painting, which the master regarded as an important and basic element in composition. It was through his association with Léger that Crosbie was introduced to J.D. Fergusson and Margaret Morris; they lived in Montparnasse at that time and would become good friends
with Crosbie when the couple moved to Glasgow at the outbreak of the Second World War. Through Fernand Léger, the young Scotsman was introduced to other artists working in Paris at that time, among them Piet Mondrian, ‘very skinny and tall’, the sculptor Ossip Zadkine, and painters Moïse Kisling, Andre Lhote and Marie Laurencin. When Crosbie’s scholarship funds began to run out he had to think of leaving Paris. There also seemed to be the strong possibility that there was going to be a war in Europe. He went back to Scotland, via London, where he volunteered his services to the armed forces, ‘not wanting to be conscripted to fight on someone else’s terms’. He was told there was not going to be a war and so his offer was rejected and he returned to Glasgow. He rented the studio at 12 Ruskin Terrace, in the west end of Glasgow, which had originally been designed for D.Y. Cameron by Honeyman & Keppie (and Mackintosh may have had a hand in it as well). It was here that William Crosbie held his first one-man exhibition in November 1939. When the war began to impact on his fellow citizens, Crosbie drove ambulances for a time and was conscripted into the Merchant Navy. During the war years there was what Bill Crosbie described as ‘a little local renaissance’, where his studio often became the meeting place for artists, such as, J.D. Fergusson, the refugee
William Crosbie in his Ruskin Lane Studio, Glasgow, c.1950 5
William Crosbie seated in his studio, c.1950 6
“As a painter I have always worked in the belief that once you have mastered a technique or perfected a style, that’s the time to stop. Each piece of work should be a fresh beginning as far as possible.” William Crosbie, 1974
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William Crosbie aboard a Merchant Navy vessel, c.1940
William Crosbie’s studio, Ruskin Lane, Glasgow, c.1950
artists Jankel Adler and Josef Herman and others including the playwright ‘James Bridie’ (OH Mavor), Tom Honeyman (who was by then the new Director of Glasgow Art Galleries and Museums) and the actor Duncan MacRae. There is a fine ink and wash drawing by Crosbie in this exhibition, entitled Jankel Adler Talking with Friends in the Studio, Ruskin Lane (cat. 3), whose subject is at just such a gathering. It was at this time that Crosbie began making portraits of some of his contemporaries, including his friend Duncan MacRae (1905–1967) [collection of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery]; ‘Hugh MacDiarmid’ (Christopher Grieve) (1892–1978) [collection of Glasgow Art Galleries and Museums], Dr. Tom Honeyman (1891–1971) [private collection]; O.H. Mavor (James Bridie) 1888–1951 (private collection) and the poet Robert Crombie Saunders (1914–1991) [collection of Scottish National Portrait Gallery]. He started exhibiting paintings with Craigie Annan at the Annan Gallery in Glasgow, with his first major exhibition held in 1944, and
continued to exhibit regularly there until the 1970s. He also showed work at Aitken Dott’s (The Scottish Gallery) in Edinburgh in 1948 and 1950 and had a major retrospective with Dott’s in 1980. In London he had an exhibition with Reid & Lefevre in 1947 along with the English surrealist John Armstrong, and in 1952 he exhibited with the Connell sisters in Glasgow. That William Crosbie was able to follow his own path and paint what he wanted, rather than the type of work that was primarily market-led, came down to his talent not only as a painter but his ability to turn his skills to earning an income through working in other allied fields. He worked with the architects Jack Coia and Basil Spence. Coia was the architect who was largely responsible after World War II for the design of many of the Catholic churches that were built in and around Glasgow and the surrounding areas (see p.56/57). Crosbie would construct architectural models of the proposed churches, which were an aid to the architect and especially to the clients to better understand how the finished article would look. These churches also needed decoration and Bill
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Crosbie was on hand to paint murals and deal with any other such requirements. Basil Spence also required architectural models to show his clients, which Crosbie was obviously experienced at constructing. He recognized that Crosbie was just the man to design stands for industrial exhibitions, as well as his talent and experience in painting largescale murals and panels, notably (amongst others) at the Festival of Britain Exhibition in London in 1951 (illustrated p.2). This led on to commissions to paint murals for schools, the Ordinance and Munitions factory at Bishopton in Renfrewshire and The Glasgow Police Headquarters. In 1980 he painted his final mural, for the café at the Edinburgh City Art Centre. Crosbie also carried out work for a firm of interior decorators in Glasgow owned by a Mr Bowman Lindsay. Amongst their clients were the Stirlings of Keir, where Crosbie was employed to restore some Chinese wallpaper that had been purchased in the early nineteenth century by their ancestors on honeymoon in China. The wallpaper had faded and had suffered in the damper Scottish climate. Crosbie’s restoration was achieved by retouching it with watercolour, making sure to match it with the faded original. It took a long time to complete the task as it covered much of the walls of two substantial bedrooms. He enjoyed his stay at Keir (as a house guest) and described it as being full of wonderful pictures and objects, including works by Goya, William Blake and what he thought was perhaps a portrait of one of the Stuart kings (possibly James III), ‘a fine work by a continental painter’. Another Glasgow-based firm of interior decorators was Guthrie and Wells, for whom fellow artist Charles Cameron Baillie was recruited for certain work. One such project was the interior decoration of the famous Glasgow restaurant, Rogano’s, where Crosbie was
enlisted to provide assistance. Bill did comment that Charlie Baillie could not ascend the ladder and scaffolding to decorate the restaurant’s ceiling ‘without having a half bottle of whisky inside of him’. Crosbie was also involved in illustrating books for the Glasgow publisher William MacLellan. The drawings he made for Sorley MacLean’s book of poems, Dain do Eimhir (1943), stand among his best work, in any medium, during the 1940s. It was his association with MacLellan that led to an unexpected encounter. The publisher had asked Crosbie to meet the printer Robert Black at his premises in Argyle Street to approve some proofs. Bill was standing by a printing press, when what he thought was a bundle of rags on the printer’s floor moved suddenly; it turned out to be ‘Hugh MacDiarmid’ (Christopher Grieve), ‘who was recovering from a two-week blinder’. MacDiarmid’s war service had been on the puffers, shifting cargoes on the Forth and Clyde Canal, where he broke a leg. The poet’s wife Valda was not at home at that time, and so Bill invited MacDiarmid to his studio to paint his portrait ‘in an effort to raise his spirits’. The painting of MacDiarmid is now in the collection of Glasgow Art Galleries, Kelvingrove. It was by such means, working with architects, decorating firms and painting murals that Bill was able to make a living while continuing to create the paintings that he wanted to paint. Many years ago Bill wrote, ‘Art for art’s sake is unquestionably one of the few things that matter’. I will leave the last words to the late Emilio Coia, art critic for The Scotsman newspaper, in a review of Crosbie’s work: ‘what seemed formerly as divergences into a variety of artistic territories, now in retrospect it can be seen he succeeded in assimilating these influences and making them his own’.
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The Artist’s Artist Mary Cross West End News and Partick Advertiser, Friday, March 1st, 1974
‘I am a born and bred Chinaman’, said William Crosbie, the artist, ‘I always do everything the other way round from everyone else!’ He was born in China and stayed there till he was 11 or 12 when it was time to go to senior school. His father was a Borderer and his mother came from the Highlands but William Crosbie does not recognise his own Scottishness – ‘The Chinese are far more sensible than the Scots.’ His home in Ruskin Lane is full of signs of Chinese background. The nameplate on the front door says ‘Faucheong’ in Chinese hieroglyphs. ‘This is a description of the name of the house’, he told me. ‘It means the place where a road comes to a ferry. In this context it means a place of exchange and communication.’ Renaissance William was one of the group of artists and writers that was very active immediately before the Second World War. He painted the portraits of men like the late J.D. Fergusson, another artist, and Robert Blair Wilkie, who is now Curator of the People’s Palace on Glasgow Green. ‘Twenty or thirty years ago these individuals were standard bearers in a little local Renaissance’, he told me. In the 1940s Dr. Tom Honeyman, then director of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, encouraged people to go and see
the exhibitions by offering a free cup of tea or coffee. Osborne Mavor was trying to boast the Citizens Theatre from the doldrums. Erik Chisholm composed the ballet ‘The Earth Shapers’ for which William designed the sets. The S.N.P. had a strong following and Douglas Young was sent to prison for refusing to fight in an English Army. He was agitating for a Scottish army. William was not a pacifist himself but he objected to fighting on someone else’s terms. ‘It’s the moral of the thing’, he said. ‘I will not kill under orders.’ Navy Instead, he volunteered for the Merchant Navy and was a seaman for two years. Then he drove ambulances and fire engines wherever and whenever he was needed in the major ports from Newcastle to Glasgow. It was natural for him to join the navy for he comes from a seafaring family. This is clear from a quick look around his studio. There are many pictures and models of boats, and the sailor’s traditional companion, a parrot. ‘My daughter who works in Cambridge has just given him to me. He is an African Grey which is the only kind to speak like a human.’ Still very young, Cambridge, as he is called, is being taught to make the right noises.
Yung Fong, Taiping Road, Hankow. Taken at the Crosbie household, c.1920 11
William Crosbie in his studio, c.1950
William Crosbie in his studio, 1974
Spain Though he did not fight in the Spanish Civil War he went to Spain in 1937 with a friend from an American magazine. ‘We would move into a place where there had been a battle, photograph it and compile articles against war in general. They appeared in the Picture Post in England.’ At this time he was living in Paris on an art scholarship. He had already spent six years in Britain as a student, being taught the precise, formal style that was fashionable in British art colleges. ‘I would call it the late nineteenth century, early twentieth century romantic style, as in the obviously posed pictures of Queen Victoria with groups of her numerous relations,’ he said. He now sees this training as an opportunity to learn the academic disciplines, a necessary first step. But at the time I felt saturated with the stuff so I had to get out’. So he went to Paris, the home of many artists at that time who were comparing ideas and freeing themselves of academic formality. The person who had the biggest influence on him there was Fernand Léger, a Doctor of
Philosophy from the Sorbonne. Under this man William was able to follow up his own interests in the history of technique and explore the primitive art of the sixteenth century. ‘My style developed from a conscious desire to paint in the character of traditional classical paintings. This tendency to get back to primitive art can be seen in much twentieth century works. ‘Picasso looked to the meticulous Portuguese art from before the Renaissance in his formal works and J.D. Fergusson was very interested in Celtic design.’ On the scholarship of £300 William spent three years in Paris. ‘It would be wrong to say it was cheap then but we lived in the attics of hotels and empty shops… the sort of place that would be called ‘unhygienic’ now! We led an austere life for the sake of what we wanted to do.’ When the scholarship ended in July 1939 he received the bonus £50 for having completed the course and was offered a job with the Archaeological Institute’s expedition to the newly excavated Temple of the Bulls and Temple of Sakhara in Egypt.
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‘I had to copy exactly each long frieze telling a story in pictures. There were men cutting wood, hoisting up buckets of water twenty feet by means of an Archimedes wheel and other aspects of everyday life.’ The frugal existence of Paris over, ‘I was able to misbehave as much as I liked so long as I arrived for work on time!’ he laughed. Back in this country war seemed to him to be imminent so he applied to the R.A.F., the army and of course the navy. ‘They said there wasn’t going to be a war so I should go home. But in Paris there had been air raid drills twice a week so everyone there was expecting it.
Independence Built for an artist last century it has big skylights, an Aga stove and a large fireplace. He says his ideal home is in Paris – ‘just one room magnificently furnished, where you bring whoever you want’, he said. A Chinaman in a Scottish community, he likes to be independent of other people, free to live his own life in the style he chooses.
Portraits In Glasgow with the training and experience that gave him his own conception of art William set up his studio in Ruskin Lane. He paints portraits of friends, but would not call himself part of a portrait painting industry. ‘For that you need an agent, and the style is dictated by the industry and the fashion of the day’ he said. This goes against the grain of William’s approach to his work. ‘As a painter I have always worked in the belief that once you have mastered a technique or perfected a style, that’s the time to stop. Each piece of work should be a fresh beginning as far as possible.’ William will paint anything from pub-signs to landscapes, but his particular interest is in figure painting. ‘I look at the figure for a day’, he explained, ‘put away the model and drawings and go to bed for a month. After thinking about it all this time I get up one morning and paint it on the canvas. It’s a mental thing that takes a long time to learn.’ The studio is just the place for this kind of life: comfortable but easy to live in.
William Crosbie in his Petersfield studio, c.1980, photograph by Robert Mabon 13
A New Era Guy Peploe
A significant supporter who grew to know the artist during the War was Dr. T.J. Honeyman, the polymath Director of Glasgow Museums, previous partner in Reid & Lefevre, and biographer of The Colourists. Like Hutchison he was a strong advocate for Crosbie and intervened to secure payment for a second mural for the City, this time at Maryhill Hall, in June 1940. The following February he wrote confirming his purchase of a major painting from an Annan exhibition for Kelvingrove. He also discussed a joint Fergusson and Crosbie show for the gallery, Fergus and Meg now installed at Kelvin Bridge after returning from France. Honeyman was an enlightened Director knowing a good picture and grasping the populist, transformatory nature of great art. In 1951 he bought Salvador Dalí’s Christ of St John of the Cross; he knew Dalí from his time at Reid & Lefevre, who represented the Spanish Surrealist in the thirties. It may well have been Honeyman’s introduction which led to Crosbie’s joint show with John Armstrong in 1947, having previously shown with the Brook Street Gallery. During the 1940s Crosbie can be seen as a British Surrealist. He never signed a manifesto nor participated in the happenings and conventions espoused by the adherents of André Breton but his work of the War years shares the spatial ambiguity and disconcerting juxtaposition of motifs characteristic of the movement and his painting with Armstrong, the most overt of the British followers is significant.
[1] Portrait of T.J. Honeyman, 1945 oil on canvas, 101.5 x 76 cm signed and dated lower left 14
This monumental Surrealist work from 1941, Womb from Womb (detail opposite), has the artist contorted, in consideration of a studio work which hints at the complexity of Dada or Surrealism, all in an interior which has the modernist design aesthetic of Kurt Schwitters and Fritz Lang. The enigmatic title may refer obliquely to a difficult childhood or the creative process which is considered with a fierce intensity. The painting featured in A New Era at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 2018 and was later purchased on behalf of the nation by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.
Right: Womb from Womb, 1941 (detail) oil on canvas, 213.5 x 152.5 cm Collection of Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh. Purchased from The Scottish Gallery in 2018.
Illustrated Works
William Crosbie was awarded a major travelling award worth £120.00 in the summer of 1937. This would sustain him in Paris for extended periods where he enrolled at the atelier of Fernand Léger, in preference to the academic training available at the École des Beaux Arts. He had digs on Rue de la Grande Chaumier, opposite the Academie Colarossi, in a room, offered at a reduced rate, above the lift. Here he could make a cup of coffee but otherwise he ate out in the restaurants of the quartier, like that run by Mme Wadja, full of impoverished art students (it is still there but now gentrified). Crosbie subsidised his bursary by washing dishes and sweeping up leaves in the Luxembourg Gardens: “They weighed them before they paid you!” Léger was a profound influence. There were only three other students and to gain admission he had to draw a sheep’s skull but beyond this there was no examination;
instead the master would suggest something that Crosbie might benefit from studying and send him off for a couple of weeks. He did find time to take classes in history of art in the Sorbonne and drawing with Maillol. Léger’s studio was next door to that occupied by J.D. Fergusson and Margaret Morris with whom Crosbie made a connection that would bear fruit in the years to come when he collaborated with Morris on her Celtic Ballet. The towering example of Fergusson, highly respected in modernist circles and deeply connected with London and Paris bohemia, was important for Crosbie. Here was a painter who never taught, who lived a frugal life dedicated to art but was the antithesis of the ascetic; a modern and bohemian paragon. Guy Peploe, 2015
[2] Market Day, Paris, Seated Woman in Front of Brick Wall, c.1938 watercolour and ink, 29 x 24 cm 16
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During the war years there was what Crosbie described as ‘a little local renaissance’, where his studio in Ruskin Lane became the meeting place for artists, including J.D. Fergusson and the émigré artists Jankel Adler and Josef Herman. Adler’s work in particular was an influence on Crosbie as well as his Glasgow contemporaries Robert Colquhoun and MacBryde.
[3] Jankel Adler Talking with Friends in Crosbie’s Studio, c.1940 ink on newsprint paper, 25 x 35 cm inscribed and dated lower left 18
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This portrait of poet Robert Crombie Saunders is a preparatory work for the oil painting now in the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland. Saunders was a poet, journalist and teacher, and a significant figure in the Scottish Literary Renaissance of the 20th century. In 1944 he edited a selection of Hugh MacDiarmid’s poems, which did much to restore MacDiarmid’s reputation. Crosbie’s portrait of MacDiarmid is in the collection of Kelvingrove Art Gallery.
[4] Portrait of Crombie Saunders, 1942 gouache, 76 x 51 cm inscribed lower left and dated lower right 20
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[5] Anto Vilduis, Young Man, 1947 oil on canvas, 21 x 17 cm signed lower right 22
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[6] Bespectacled Man ‘Tout de Suite’, c.1949 ink on newsprint paper, 27 x 21.5 cm 24
[7] Conductor, c.1949 ink on newsprint paper, 54 x 43 cm inscribed ‘Blast’ lower left 25
[8] Male Cellist, c.1949 pen and ink, 54 x 38 cm 26
[9] Self and Maiden, c.1949 pen and wash, 34 x 24 cm signed lower right 27
[10] The Saddle, Balmaha, Barren with Trees, 1943 ink on paper, 25 x 35.5 cm signed lower right 28
[11] Trees in Landscape, 1943 watercolour, 26 x 31 cm signed and dated lower left 29
[12] Tree in Landscape, c.1943 ink on paper, 17.5 x 15 cm 30
[13] Irish Tree, 1952 ink on paper, 49 x 74 cm signed and dated lower left 31
[14] Compotier Still Life, c.1950 oil on board, 50.8 x 60.9 cm signed upper right 32
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[15] Abstract Portrait with Red Triangle, c.1951 oil on board, 35 x 20 cm 34
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[16] Woman Singing, c.1955 oil on canvas board, 76.2 x 63.5 cm signed lower left 36
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[17] Parrot and Still Life, c.1955 oil on board, 60.9 x 106.6 cm signed upper left 38
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The public reaction to Crosbie’s abstract surrealist paintings in the early years was largely hostile. However, Bill’s work in painting murals, building models for architects, creating altarpieces and illustrating books allowed him the freedom to continue painting unrestricted by the lack of a ready market for his easel paintings. These paintings and indeed all of William Crosbie’s pictures are what he described as being in the nature of a diary, whatever the day brought, an attempt to make some comment was the result. Ewan Mundy, 2000
[18] Fish, Bamboo and Lychee, 1965 oil on board, 60.9 x 121.9 cm signed and dated lower left 40
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[19] Nude with Red Choker, 1965 oil on canvas on board, 145 x 76 cm signed and dated lower right 42
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[20] Churchall, Pink Roses, c.1965 oil on board, 31 x 28 cm signed upper left 44
[21] Head of a Woman with Brooch, c.1969 oil on canvas, 31 x 25 cm signed lower right This is a portrait of the Artist’s second wife, Anne. 45
[22] Fruit Bowl, 1967 oil on canvas, 25 x 36 cm signed and dated lower right 46
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[23] Jeannie (Jenny Murray, BBC TV), 1973 oil on board, 36 x 22 cm signed and dated lower left 48
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[24] Black and White Hens, 1970s watercolour, 38 x 55.5 cm signed lower right 50
[25] Hens – Black, White, Blue and Red, 1970s watercolour, 38 x 56 cm signed lower left 51
[26] The Bat Dance, 1970 oil on board, 10 x 42 cm signed and dated lower left 52
[27] Evolution (Four Nude Figures), c.1977 oil on board, 35.5 x 44.4 cm 53
This painting depicts William Crosbie’s home, Rushes House in Petersfield, Hampshire.
[28] Snowy, Pink House, c.1980 oil on board, 46 x 59 cm signed lower right 54
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St Laurence’s Roman Catholic church in Greenock was built just after the Second World War during a period of great change and expansion of communities in Scotland. Designed by the architects Gillespie, Kidd and Coia in the simplified New Scandinavian style, the church has an outstanding set of modern ecclesiastical murals by Crosbie. Jack Coia was a great friend of the artist and they worked together on several church projects in the 1940s and 50s, ensuring a close relationship between architecture and art. Dawn McDowell, Deputy Head of Designations, Historic Environment Scotland
Stations of the Cross Mural, St Laurence’s, Greenock 56
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[29] Village Church, Petersfield Burriton, Hants, 1980 oil on board, 40 x 52 cm signed and dated lower left 58
[30] Duke’s Tower, Inveraray, c.1980 crayon and ink, 39.5 x 54.5 cm signed lower right
[31] Cathedral Close, 1986 watercolour, 22 x 18 cm signed and dated lower left 59
[32] Priors Dean, 1981 oil on board, 39 x 66 cm signed and dated lower right 60
[33] Low Winter Sun, 1982 oil on board, 22.9 x 43 cm inscribed, dated and titled on verso 61
[34] Iacta Alia Est, 1982 oil on board, 105.4 x 105.4 cm signed and dated lower right 62
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[35] Happy Days (Nude), 1990 oil on canvas board, 45.5 x 20.5 cm signed lower left, signed and dated verso 64
[36] Female Nude with Two Plants, 1985 oil on board, 25 x 20 cm signed lower right 65
[37] Nude with Blue Bandana, c.1994 oil on board, 42.5 x 32 cm signed upper right 66
[38] Nude with Red Hair (Champaide Bataie), c.1994 oil on board, 30.5 x 46 cm signed upper left 67
[39] Nude on Yellow Cloth, 1994 oil on board, 25.5 x 51 cm signed and dated upper right 68
[40] Midpiece – Corkscrew and Fruit, 1985 oil on canvas board, 45.7 x 50.8 cm signed and dated lower right 69
[41] Cathédrale à l’huile, 1986 oil on board, 76 x 64 cm signed and dated lower left 70
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[42] Lobster Fisher Refit, 1988 oil on board, 27 x 46 cm signed and dated lower left 72
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[43] Dolls at Play, 1987 oil on canvas, 59 x 50 cm signed and dated lower left 74
[44] The Caller (Doll), 1987 oil on canvas board, 51.5 x 34.5 cm signed and dated lower right 75
[45] Poupee aux Deux Chapeaux, 1989 oil on board, 58 x 44 cm 76
[46] Pique-Nique Finisterre (On Beach), 1988 oil on board, 47.5 x 47.5 cm signed and dated lower left 77
[47] Seated Pink Lady, 1988 oil on canvas, 91 x 71 cm signed and dated lower right 78
[48] Painter Ponders, 1988 oil on board, 90 x 71 cm signed and dated lower right These two portraits, of the artist and his wife, were hung together at their home in Petersfield. 79
[49] Music of the Living – Monkey and Nude, 1988 oil on board, 71 x 91.4 cm signed and dated lower left 80
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[50] Madonna, 1992 oil on canvas, 40 x 30 cm inscribed lower left 82
[51] Regnans, c.1988 oil on canvas board in hand painted frame, 40.6 x 30.4 cm 83
[52] Girl with Flowers, c.1990 oil on canvas board, 76.2 x 63.5 cm signed and dated lower left 84
[53] Still Life Anemones on Checked Fabric, c.1990 watercolour and ink, 29 x 25 cm signed lower left 85
“Where there’s a will there’s a way. If daylight is available you should be working. I believe that if the energy is there it should be making something!” William Crosbie, 1995
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[54] Hampshire Harvest, 1991 oil on board, 29 x 56 cm signed and dated lower left 87
[55] Beaune Village Square, 1984 ink on paper, 30 x 42 cm signed and dated lower right 88
[56] Wednesdays and Saturdays, 1991 pen on paper, 35.5 x 28 cm signed and dated lower left 89
[57] Pot of Anemones, 1990 oil on board, 30 x 22 cm signed and dated lower left 90
[58] Aujourd’hui Hier, 1992 oil on canvas, 58 x 49 cm signed and dated upper left 91
In his later years Crosbie continued to add thematic richness to his painting; smooth faced Victorian dolls promenade; Scottish earthenware pots and jugs containing stylised ‘cut-out’ flowers, flattened design is combined with rich colour (surely Mary Fedden, whose husband Julian Trevelyan exhibited with Crosbie in the fifties must have been an influence), musical instruments float in compositions that turn again to Surrealism and his joy in the female form, sometimes provocative but always painterly, is undimmed. Guy Peploe, 2015
[59] NoĂŤl Vide, 1992 oil on canvas board, 61 x 51 cm signed and dated lower left 92
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[60] Culture Crosses Culture, 1993 watercolour, 28 x 46 cm signed and dated lower right 94
[61] Man in Purple Jacket, 1993 watercolour and pencil, 57 x 39 cm signed and dated lower left 95
[62] Flowers in Vase with Chinese Figures, 1991 watercolour and ink on paper, 40 x 24 cm signed and dated lower left 96
[63] Wild Flowers, 1947 ink and watercolour, 56 x 45 cm signed and dated lower right 97
[64] Look Forward in Anger, 1995 oil on canvas board, 29 x 23 cm signed and dated lower left 98
[65] Train Journey to Glasgow, 1995 oil on board, 35.7 x 45.7 cm signed lower right 99
[66] Playing to my Friends, 1996 oil on board, 91.4 x 60.9 cm signed and dated lower right 100
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[67] Madone Trois Fois, 1997 oil on canvas, 33 x 38 cm signed and dated upper right 102
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[68] Still Room, 1997 oil on canvas, 29 x 30 cm signed and dated lower right 104
[69] Matter Anti Matter (Purple Corset), 1998 oil on canvas on board, 50.8 x 35.5 cm signed and dated upper left 105
William Crosbie had a fine, enquiring mind, was deeply read and was immersed in the liberal arts; he had great technical gifts and was happy to apply these far beyond the confines of studio and easel but at the same time he recognised that a painter needed to paint and to exhibit. The determination to be engaged with the hurly burly and a prodigious work ethic have left much to be rediscovered and celebrated. Guy Peploe
[70] Moi-MĂŞme, Ruskin Lane, 1998 oil on canvas, 46 x 39 cm signed and dated lower right 106
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Biography William Crosbie RGI, RSA (1915–1999)
1915
1942
Born in Hankow, China
Dain Do Eimhir – Illustrations for Sorley MacLean’s poetry, published by William MacLellan, Glasgow
1926–27 Crosbie family returned to Glasgow from China 1932–35 Studied at Glasgow School of Art 1935 Awarded Haldane Travelling Scholarship 1935–39 Travelled to Paris Entered École des Beaux-Arts Studied under Fernand Léger who introduced him to J.D. Fergusson and Margaret Morris
1946 Commissioned to paint a mural at the entrance of the Britain Can Make It exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London Painting exhibited in Brook Street Gallery, London alongside Anne Estelle Rice, Augustus John, John Piper and Christopher Wood, attracting critical attention. Crosbie remembers meeting Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde during the exhibition
Travelled to Dongder, Egypt to work on the Temple of Bulls
Commissioned by Dr. O.A. Mavor (Governor of Victoria Infirmary) to produce a series of paintings of Victoria Infirmary and its work. 44 watercolours of the hospital were exhibited at Annan’s in Glasgow
Studied at Athens College of Art
1947
1938
Daughter Pauline is born
Mural in Empire Exhibition, Glasgow
1950
1939
Article in Vogue on Scottish Talents, featuring two photographs of Crosbie
1937 Visited Spain during Civil War
Establishes studio in Ruskin Lane, Glasgow One-man show at 12 Ruskin Lane 1940s Designed sets for Earth Shapers Ballet
108
1951 Commission for mural painting at Kelvin Hall Exhibition of Industrial Power. Crosbie painted a fluorescent mural – a symbolic illustration that the basic source of all power is the sun
1953
1976
Elected Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy
Portrait commission to commemorate the retirement of Sir Charles Wilson after 15 years as Principal of Glasgow University
1956 Commission for mural at new Duncanrig School, East Kilbride Show at new premises acquired by RGI at 13 Blythswood Square, Glasgow. The first series of one-man shows sponsored by RGI included Crosbie’s drawings of Brydekirk (near Annan) and clowns. J.D. Kelly was president of RGI at this time and the show was opened by Sir William Hutchison 1960 Walking and painting tour of the Middle East in the hope of meeting up with his brother Glen, a naval attachÊ at the British Embassy at Anhara
1980 William Crosbie Retrospective Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 1990 Major retrospective exhibitions held at Ewan Mundy Fine Art, Glasgow and Perth Museum & Art Gallery 1999 Died in Petersfield, Hampshire, England
1962 Commission for a wood carving of Christ for the Scottish Episcopal Church of Holy Name, Cumbernauld 1973 Elected Academician at the Royal Scottish Academy 1974 Given a parrot by daughter Pauline, which he names Cambridge as Pauline is currently at university in Cambridge
William and Anne Crosbie, c.1990 109
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1980
1938
William Crosbie Retrospective Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh
‘Chez Henriette’ Restaurant (Rue de la Grande Chaumiere), Paris
1990
1939
Ewan Mundy Fine Art, Glasgow
‘Anderlect’ Restaurant, Brussels
Perth Museum & Art Gallery
1940–48
2015
Annan Gallery, Glasgow 1948
William Crosbie Centenary, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh
The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh
2016
1950
Works on Paper, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh
The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh Connell & Sons, Glasgow 1955 Annan Gallery, Glasgow 1956 Opening Exhibition, Blythswood Gallery, Glasgow 1957 Paintings of Balfron Region, Auchendarroch, Balfron 1965
2020 The Devoted Creative, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh
MURALS 1938 Two major scale murals, Empire Exhibition, Glasgow 1939–40
John D. Kelly Gallery, Glasgow
Maryhill Mutual Service Club, Doncaster Street, Glasgow
1966
1940
Romart Gallery, Edinburgh
Glasgow Central Police Headquarters
1970
1944
Royal College of Science and Technology (now Strathclyde University), Glasgow
Bishopton Mural, Renfrewshire
Annan Gallery, Glasgow 1972 John D. Kelly Gallery, Glasgow Retrospective, Lillie Art Gallery, Milngavie, Glasgow 1976 John D. Kelly Gallery, Glasgow
110
1946 Alexandra Palace, London 1946 Plantation Club, Clifford Lane, Glasgow 1947 Education Liaison Officer’s Office, Glasgow Art Galleries
1948
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Britain Can Make It, Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Perth Museum & Art Gallery, Perth & Kinross Council
1950
McClean Museum & Art Gallery
Two major scale murals, Community Service Hall, Glasgow
University of Glasgow, Hunterian Art Gallery
1950
South Ayrshire Council
Festival of Britain, London
Glasgow Museums
1951
Maggie’s, Glasgow
Festival of Industrial Power, Kelvinhall, Glasgow
University of Strathclyde
1960
Newport Museum & Art Gallery
Glasgow Industrial Exhibition, Glasgow
National Trust for Scotland
The only murals surviving to date are:
Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums
1956
Royal Scottish Academy of Arts and Architecture
Main entrance hall, Secondary School at East Kilbride, Lanarkshire
Paisley Museum & Art Gallery
1967 Entrance portico bas relief, Victoria Drive Secondary School Extension, Glasgow
CHURCH PAINTINGS Buckieburn, Stirlingshire, 1939–40 St Margaret’s Polmadie, Glasgow (Baptistry), 1945 Stations of the Cross, Archbishop’s Oratory, Diocesian Office
Dundee Art Gallery & Museums Collection
National Galleries of Scotland Gracefield Arts Centre British Museum, Department of Prints & Drawings The Royal Collection Scottish Arts Council Museum and Art Gallery, Newport, Gwent Museum and Art Gallery, New Zealand Sydney Art Gallery, Australia
Stations of the Cross, St Laurence’s, Greenock Reredos, St Cuthbert’s, Burnbank, Blantyre Reredos, St Bonaventure and altar front, Resurrection and Entombment St Columbkille’s, Rutherglen, Sacred Heart Altar ceiling painting Reredos, St Michael’s, Linlithgow Christ in Majesty, wood carving, commissioned by the Scottish Episcopal Church of the Holy Name, New Town of Cumbernauld, 1962
William Crosbie, Ruskin Lane, Glasgow, c.1950 111
Published by The Scottish Gallery to coincide with the exhibition William Crosbie The Devoted Creative 1–25 April 2020 Exhibition can be viewed online at www.scottish-gallery.co.uk/williamcrosbie The Scottish Gallery would like to thank Ewan Mundy Fine Art and Paolo Rossi for their help with our publication. Particular thanks also to Dawn McDowell, Deputy Head of Designations, Historic Environment Scotland. ISBN: 978 1 912900 19 0 Designed by Kenneth Gray Photography by John McKenzie Printed by J Thomson Colour Printers All rights reserved. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced in any form by print, photocopy or by any other means, without the permission of the copyright holders and of the publishers.
Front cover: William Crosbie in his Ruskin Lane Studio, Glasgow, c.1950 Inside front cover: Noël Vide, 1992 (detail) (cat. 59) oil on canvas board, 61 x 51 cm Opposite: Cathédrale à l’huile, 1986 (detail) (cat. 41) oil on board, 76 x 64 cm 112