James Morrison A Celebration 1932 – 2020
James Morrison A Celebration 1932–2020 16 Dundas Street·Edinburgh EH3 6HZ +44 (0) 131 558 1200 mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk scottish-gallery.co.uk
James Morrison A Celebration 1932–2020
THE SCOTTISH GALLERY·2022
Published by The Scottish Gallery for the exhibition James Morrison A Celebration 1932–2020 held at 16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh, 6–25 June 2022 Produced, researched and edited by Christina Jansen, The Scottish Gallery ISBN 978 1 912900 51 0 Artworks © James Morrison Texts © the contributors 2022 Catalogue © The Scottish Gallery 2022 Stills from Eye of the Storm © Montrose Pictures 2021 All rights reserved Works photographed by John McKenzie Designed and typeset by Nye Hughes Studio Printed in Wales by Gomer Press Cover: detail from Achnahaird, 14.v.2003 [cat.75] Inside covers: A selection of Scottish Gallery James Morrison exhibition catalogues and private view invitation cards 1959–2020 Frontispiece: detail from Field Boundary, 1965 [cat.10] Left: James Morrison painting in Angus, 1981
Contents
Foreword Guy Peploe 6 Introduction John Morrison 9 EARLY YEARS 13 James Morrison Festival, 1991 David McClure 14 The Glasgow Paintings James Morrison 16 MID CAREER 58 From East to West William C. M. Jackson 60 My Country, 1994 Denis Rice 72 THE ARCTIC 93 James Morrison in the Arctic John Morrison 94 LATER YEARS 123 The Edge of Allegory Guy Peploe 124 EYE OF THE STORM 171 An interview between Christina Jansen and Anthony Baxter 173 Biography 183 12:1 Gallery 189 Acknowledgements 192
Foreword
This celebratory publication looks back over the long career of James Morrison and attempts to pull together the many strands of a life dedicated to art. A vital part of this dedication over seven decades was his relationship with The Scottish Gallery where mutual trust was a key component of the art business and a strong, honest working relationship helped to deliver his exhibitions to a wide and appreciative audience. A poem comes alive in the reading, music in the performance and a painting needs to be seen. Morrison really only wanted to paint but recognised he also needed to show. Jim was a nervous father to his painted progeny, often too close in the process to feel able to judge a new work and in the lead-up to an exhibition a studio visit was looked forward to with a kind of dread. The visit was ostensibly to select new work but was also a huge privilege for The Gallery representative, mostly myself over the last thirty years or so. I would drive up to Craigview House just south of Montrose and join Jim in his studio across a courtyard from the house. Coffee would be brewing with ten or fifteen oil paintings on board pinned to the wall. Each would be considered and discussed, the artist’s insights on each invaluable to The Gallery and comments in return, invariably positive, apparently welcome to the painter. A simple lunch in the conservatory would be followed
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James Morrison painting in Angus, c.1973
by a careful loading into the back of the car, the newly varnished works interwoven with great sheets of release paper. This was how it worked after the artist signed an exclusive contract in 1985 which delivered the security of a regular income and allowed him to leave his teaching position at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art. In the decades prior to this, and before I started at The Gallery, there was a mutual respect in tandem with regular one-person shows, milestones in the painter’s life: working in Glasgow, Catterline, St Cyrus, the Mearns and then the West Coast saw his practice and confidence grow. The relationship with The Gallery allowed him to choose the times he could travel and he made expeditions to Canada, the Arctic, Botswana and more locations in Europe. Jim’s deep anxiety about his work persisted and his wife Dorothy and their children were the first to be interrogated for their opinion. But he never doubted the value of his métier – painting was important, the history of art was Morrison’s world, only his own value in it was a subject of doubt. That doubt has long since been banished and today looking back in affection and wonder at his brilliant legacy of painting this celebration heralds a new era of appreciation for James Morrison. Guy Peploe The Scottish Gallery
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Introduction
James Morrison by John Morrison
James Morrison painting at Balnakeil Bay, c.2007
I am delighted to have been asked to write the introduction to celebrate my father’s work. Since he died, I have been organising and cataloguing the archive of material left in his studio. There is a considerable amount of it, but its organisation was always undertaken by my mother. It has become somewhat chaotic in the time between her death in 2006 and my father’s passing in August 2020. In looking at the material I was genuinely astonished to find a collection of almost 20 diaries documenting and discussing his painting life since the late 1950s. I had no knowledge of their existence. They have deepened and enriched my knowledge and understanding of my father and his work enormously. Frustratingly though, I’m left with a lot of questions I’d love to have been able to ask him, things I’d have loved to debate with him. Apart from the diaries there is, for me, a treasure chest of memorabilia of a life. Lectures given, exhibitions described, art-school classes designed, catalogues collected. I’d like to draw on that material and rather than give some opinion of my own, I want to offer an account of my father’s working given by a very old friend of his. For all his committed atheism my father had a number of very close friends who were Christian ministers, or lay preachers. One of the earliest was, Rev. Dr Ian M. Fraser. My father met him through being invited to debate Christianity and atheism at Scottish Churches House in Dunblane. Rev. Dr Fraser was Warden at SCH for a time in the early 1960s. In 1968 there was a service to mark the second anniversary of the creation of Heriot-Watt University. The following is an extract from the sermon preached on that occasion by Rev. Dr Fraser. The views expressed are an honest account of my father’s thinking and practice. They were as true when he died as they were when they were explained, 50 years earlier. ‘A week or two ago I spent some hours with an agnostic artist friend of mine. We were looking at the type of work to which the artist, the theologian, and the scientist respectively set their hands. 9
James Morrison painting at Otto Fiord, Canadian High Arctic, 1992
I asked him if he felt his work was an attempt to get some grip on reality – to sketch out some clues to help those who examined his work to discover meaning in living. He was quick to say that he found no need to believe that reality lay outside human life, in some other being or power. He talked about his approach: and we got an inkling of the community of search and exploration which characterises all serious branches of knowledge and service. Something like a boat down on the shore would catch his attention. He would feel the need to get on to canvas or to sketch the impression made on him. Then fifteen, twenty attempts might be made to express what had made impact. Some would be torn up and discarded. Some would be inadequate yet contain some element or insight which he felt got him at least some distance along the road. Then one day he would get it nearly as he wanted it. He was never completely satisfied – but he would feel that now his main statement had been made. As an honest person he said to me “Sometimes when it clicks like that my mind seems to be out of gear and some other hand is taking control of mine” and added “Mind you I don’t think anything comes from the beyond. Rather all my previous attempts, my struggle to get understanding, come to a point of clarity of vision.” The artist ended with a sigh: “Do you know who I envy? The technologist. Imagine getting a chance to build a suspension bridge. You can gather into it all the theories about suspension bridges which have proved their worth up to the very point of building. Fancy being able to undertake an act of creation of that kind and at the end to stand back and say “It’s there. It gathers into it all we know and can express. It works.” Painting is a provisional accomplishment. The artist can never quite say: “I have got there.” ’ John Morrison · 2022
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Early Years ‘I first knew the work of James Morrison, when, as a young painter, he won critical acclaim for his paintings of Glasgow Streets and their decaying tenements. Somehow he distilled a kind of grim poetry from these “cruel habitations.”’ David McClure · 1991
James Morrison Festival Exhibition catalogue, August 1991 David McClure
I first knew the work of James Morrison, when, as a young painter, he won critical acclaim for his paintings of Glasgow Streets and their decaying tenements. Somehow he distilled a kind of grim poetry from these ‘cruel habitations.’ During his Catterline period he was able to draw inspiration from Joan Eardley’s work of sea, fields and village, and yet he remained his own man. His mature style owes a debt to the work of D.Y. Cameron and other landscape painters of that time (as he readily acknowledges), but his is a fresh and original interpretation of fields, trees and skies. His technical fluency in dealing with the vast vault of the sky frees him to invest its towering clouds with a paradoxically vapourous and solid majesty. He manages, in a quite original way, to chart the architecture of the sky and its clouds. Although a townsman by birth and nature, he has a countryman’s insight into the quality of life on the land. Human figures may not be present, but the mark of man on the lands of the Mearns is clearly seen in calligraphic patterns he makes out of fields, hedges and fences. His new journey of the imagination into the splendours of Assynt is a sign of his questing spirit as an artist.
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Clockwise from top left: Winter, Catterline c.1963 Stake Nets, Montrose Beach, c.1966. Long line Fishermen at Catterline, c.1963. James Morrison in the Catterline Studio, c.1964. Hopeful on the beach at Catterline, c.1963.
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The Glasgow Paintings JAMES MORRISON, 1977
I first began to paint Glasgow in 1953 when I was a student at The Glasgow School of Art. The first painting was of a tenement just North of St George’s Cross and opposite the public library. This was the first in a series of paintings of tenements and west-end terraces. The paintings were done for a number of reasons. While I was a student, I became friendly with Tom Gardner, an art teacher in the city, and his wife Audrey. Gardner along with Bill McLucas and an older teacher George McGavin, saw painting in a socially relevant way. They produced works of considerable power and commitment which in the light of the subsequent development of painting in Glasgow, were well ahead of their time. I learned of their ideas through Gardner particularly, and he recommended two books to read – Goya in the Democratic Tradition by Klingender, and The Social History of Art by Hauser. The Glasgow painters and these two books made me think that simply by looking and recording I could make some valid comment on the city and its people. I believed then as I believe now, that the life and condition of people can be implied by a sensitive realist response to the places in which they live and work. Since I last painted seriously in Glasgow, many changes have taken place and much has been made of the revival of the city. The city’s appearance however is another matter. It would be quite wrong to regret the demolition of many of the older tenements. The quality of life possible in many of them was deplorable. Yet to destroy whole districts like Cowcaddens, Port Dundas, Gorbals and Govan which had peculiar and distinct characteristics of their own was a tragedy of minor dimensions.
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Top left and bottom: James Morrison with Glasgow paintings at the Compass Gallery, Glasgow, 1977. Top right: James Morrison at the McClure Gallery, Glasgow, 1956.
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1 Glasgow Tenements, 1960 mixed media on canvas · 107 x 168 cm
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2 Tenements, 1961 oil on canvas · 62.5 x 154.5 cm
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Glasgow painter James Morrison has a one-man exhibition that opens today in Aitken Dott’s Gallery, Edinburgh [The Scottish Gallery]. Although he is still only 27, Morrison paints with the balance and conviction of an established artist. Making his name first for his sensitive studies of Glasgow houses, seen an understanding eye, Morrison now varies his work with pictures painted in the North-Eastern countryside. The grey unease of the North Sea and the gnarled timbers of its little boats are the themes of many of the most pleasing of his latest pictures. Notable is the more sunny evocation of nets hanging to dry near the coast at Catterline. But as successful in its own way is the long view of ground-floor windows in a sloping Glasgow street. The Bulletin, Saturday 21 November 1959 · G. S. M.
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3 Pastoral Landscape, 1961 oil on board · 35.5 x 53 cm
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4 Salmon Nets, Catterline, 1963 oil on board · 30 x 90 cm
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5 Fishing Boat, c.1965 oil on canvas · 61 x 40.5 cm
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6 Denhead I, 1963 oil on board · 31 x 152 cm
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7 Abstract Landscape, 1962 mixed media · 10 x 26.5 cm
8 Canterland, c.1964 mixed media · 22 x 34 cm
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9 Black Landscape, 1964 oil on canvas · 122 x 184 cm
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10 Field Boundary, 1965 oil on canvas · 101.5 x 162.5 cm
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11 St Cyrus, 1967 oil on canvas · 61 x 153 cm
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12 Trees in Landscape, 1966 oil on canvas on board · 41 x 152 cm
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13 Towards the Sea, St Cyrus, c.1966 oil on canvas · 91 x 213 cm
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14 The Linfall, 1963 oil on board · 51 x 76 cm
15 Oil Lamp Still Life, 1967 oil on canvas · 91.5 x 61.5 cm
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16 Angus Landscape, c.1977 ink and gouache · 41 x 104 cm
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17 Basin Landscape, 1976 oil on board · 76.5 x 107 cm
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18 Angus Landscape, c.1970 oil on canvas · 72.5 x 91 cm
19 Spring Landscape, 1974 oil on panel · 30.5 x 45.5 cm
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20 Caledonia Road Church, Glasgow, 1977 oil on board · 41 x 33 cm
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21 Grande Tête de l’Obiou, 1980 oil on board · 27.5 x 16.5 cm
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22 l’Obiou Mountain, 1980 oil on hardboard · 91.5 x 92 cm
23 Beech Trees, Montreathmont, 8.iii.1981 oil on board · 40.5 x 105.5 cm
24 Beech Tree, Montreathmont, 2.v.1981 oil on circular board · 80 cm
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25 Glenesk, 2.v.1986 oil on board · 27 x 92 cm
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26 Birch Tree, Glenesk, 12.xi.1981 oil on board · 89 x 119.5 cm
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27 Angus Landscape, c.1982 watercolour · 12.5 x 98.5 cm
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28 Montrose Basin, c.1985 oil on plyboard · 30 x 40 cm
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29 From Farnell, c.1983 oil on board · 51.5 x 117 cm
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30 Old Montrose, 26.vii.1983 pencil & wash on paper · 63.5 x 92 cm
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31 Breaking Waves, Montrose Beach, c.1985 oil on board · 40 x 49.5 cm
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32 Dark Seascape, c.1985 oil on board · 66 x 95.5 cm
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33 Grande Tête de l’Obiou, 1986 oil on board · 91.5 x 151 cm
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Mid Career ‘James Morrison paints in a singular voice, as a prophet, teacher, sage, poet; it is to the land, sea and sky he asks his questions and from them he brings us answers …’ GUY PEPLOE· 1994
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James Morrison, From East to West, Festival Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, 1988 William C. M. Jackson
Jim Morrison, though Glasgow trained, is firmly placed into the Northern Romantic Tradition which may be traced from Friedrich to Munch and Church to Rothko. Morrison follows the tradition of en plein air established by the 19th century landscape painters; but more pertinently, he uses an alla prima technique, rarely reworking in the studio or reconstructing paintings from notes and studies. This approach requires a courageous commitment and involves a constant battle with the elements. Morrison has experienced the contrast between the bitter cold winds of Scotland and the blazing heat and mosquitoes of the Canadian Prairies. Morrison gave up teaching in 1989 and subsequently it has been a period of great activity and achievement. The Canadian venture of the previous year was an astonishing success in every respect. In a period of six weeks, he produced twelve large scale paintings of the Saskatchewan Prairies and of the landscape of Western Ontario, with some eight-supporting works, most of which were exhibited and sold from leading Toronto galleries. Morrison says of his experience of the Prairies: One has the audacity to place an easel in the centre of an area which is several hundred thousand square miles in size and expect to capture the scale and vastness of the region; and yet, the dimensions are not so daunting, but exhilarating; I felt at the very edge of the civilised world where the community, though scattered, is supportive and generous, but to the North of Turtle Lake, there is nothing but for a handful of people in a space that stretches to the Polar region, thousands of miles away. Turtle Lake and the Prairies obviously had an immense impact on Morrison in a series of paintings he felt compelled to resolve in the studio because of the dramatic impact of the spatial experience [cat.34]. The untamed landscape of Saskatchewan offered a wonderful contrast to the man-made landscape of Western 60
James Morrison with Gallery Director William Jackson on the signing of his exclusive contract, 1987
Ontario where the Caledon and Orangeville paintings reflect a familiarity with those of his native Angus. Morrison, perhaps drained of emotion by the Canadian venture, returned home but was well aware of the danger of painting to a formula in a region he knows so well. By the late Autumn he was working in earnest in a new area, Carcary, near Brechin, and on an old railway line which provided a new structure and vision in his work. The linear nature of his earlier Angus landscapes now disappears to be replaced by powerful devices focusing abruptly on the middle ground. His sense of discovery in a new and fascinating area of Scotland was to develop into a major series of paintings but, before this, though, a series of commissions took him to the inhospitable landscape of Rannoch Moor. These paintings reflect 61
very much the accessible moorland familiar to him from his teens when he would cycle across this forbidding area with the anticipation of discovering the landscape beyond. One senses that at this stage, Rannoch Moor proved satisfying as a subject but not the new total experience he was searching for. He had worked a number of years earlier on the Argyll coast and at Morar and now moved further north to Wester Ross and to the Assynt region, with Sutherland to the north and the Torridon Mountains to the west. He was astonished by the primeval landscape and for the time understood the meaning of the term ‘Celtic Twilight.’ This awesome haunting landscape embraces all the elements he has experienced throughout his career but together, in one concentrated place. 62
James Morrison painting in the Craigview studio, 1996
There are the huge skies and spaces of the Prairies with great sandstone slabs thrusting through the earth’s surface, highlighted and punctuated by lochs and seas. Great cloud forms roll ominously across the floor of the sky, obscuring and decapitating the peaks of the Sutherland Mountains. The sea’s forces push and pull at the Summer Isles in animated fashion as though the islands are rearranged every tide. All these observations and sensations are derived not merely from the actual landscape but also from Morrison’s own penetrating vision. He is concerned with ‘the communication of a peripheral understanding of the relationship that exists between man and nature’ and he has no pretentions about making grandiose statements as an artist. His aims and ambitions are about the personal discovery of the inherent drama in landscape, whether it is transient in the form of trees, clouds, forests, and waterfalls or more permanent such as rock faces and mountain peaks, but all are powerful and spiritual gothic images. It is perhaps true to say that Morrison has made his mark on our landscape by teaching us how to perceive it, but he may also be alerting us to the danger of man’s capacity to change and destroy something we take for granted. The Northern Romantic Tradition is about the forces of nature, a preoccupation of Morrison throughout his painting career and his place in this could be best described by a quotation from Letters on Landscape by Carl Gustav Carus, written in the 1820’s; ‘…When man, sensing the immense magnificence of nature, feels his own significance, and feeling himself to be in God, enters into this infinity and abandons his individual existence, then his surrender is gain rather than loss. What otherwise only the mind’s eye sees, here becomes almost literally visible: the oneness in the infinity of the universe…’ William C. M. Jackson was the Managing Director of The Scottish Gallery 1975–1989
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34 Margot at Turtle Lake, 27.x.1987 oil on board · 56.5 x 151 cm
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‘The glory of the landscape is its vastness. It rolls on and on and yet it’s so often dwarfed, completely overwhelmed, by the most immense skies, just huge great clouds that come rolling in from the Atlantic Ocean and dominate, completely overwhelm everything down below. That’s when you catch a glimpse of your own insignificance. That’s when Man seems so puny, so utterly dwarfed by the immensity of all that surrounds him up there. It’s glorious, just glorious.’ James Morrison, 2005
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35 Approaching Storm, 12.xi.1987 oil on board · 52.5 x 73.5 cm
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36 Stone o’Morphy, 1988 oil on board · 35.5 x 110.5 cm
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37 Birchwood Study III, c.1988 oil on board · 43 x 9 cm
‘Almost all these paintings were done in the countryside and woods close to my home near Montrose. The painters whose work I very much admire are Jan van Eyck, for his technical mastery, Claude Lorraine, for his organisation of space and William Dyce, for the incisiveness of his vision. The metaphysical poets, when they write about landscape, are also in my mind. The painting methods, both the ground and the media used, are based on van Eyck’s practice. I find the world about my home so beautiful and absorbing that I have no desire to change it in my paintings – only to rejoice in it.’ James Morrison, 1978
38 Dalbrack, River and Bridge, 26.v.1988 oil on board · 76 x 152.5 cm
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‘James Morrison’s grasp of our world of sky, earth, light, shade, sea and tree are part of my inner landscape. For 30 years he has altered the way I see and feel the world. His place in the Scottish tradition of landscape painters is sure. But that implies nothing safely static or given. Nor can his Scottishness be understood as Nationalistic or Calvinist. He is a true European, a Humanist. His art is informed by a Catholic outlook – his gift and urgency as educator, his feel for music and literature, his reflectiveness in the “cathedrals” of Continental or Arctic space. To look into James Morrison’s paintings, to look with him, is to open oneself to shifts in landscape. Here, in The Gallery, the viewers enjoyment only begins. Back out there, in the land of Angus and Mearns, it continues: we enjoy our surroundings afresh, our eyes descaled in encountering the line, space and tones of Morrison’s seeing. Sensitivity to landscape leads the heart and mind higher. It points to what is beyond – to the transcendent. When Jim and I talk of that, he describes himself as agnostic. If a man who looks on the world, and gifts it to me like James Morrison, is agnostic, I wish more of my fellow religious believers could acknowledge their agnosticism.’ Denis Rice James Morrison, My Country, 1994 The Scottish Gallery
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39 From St Cyrus, 26.x.1988 oil on board · 77.5 x 104 cm
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40 Quinag on the Horizon, 1989 oil on board · 100 x 150 cm
41 Notre Dame, 14.i.1989 oil on board · 74 x 100 cm
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42 West Towers and South Transept, Paris, 18.i.1989 oil on board · 110.5 x 57 cm
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43 Aberlady Bay, East Lothian, 8.ix.1989 oil on board · 34.5 x 98 cm
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44 Summer Isles, 3.viii.1990 oil on board · 27.5 x 50.5 cm
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45 Sunset, 1990 oil on board ·40 x 71 cm
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46 West Coast, 3.viii.1990 oil on board · 40 x 44 cm
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47 Lake Hazen to the North East, 17.ix.1990 oil on board · 88 x 149 cm
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48 Angus Fields, 2.xi.1990 oil on board · 76 x 166 cm
49 Guardians at the Eastern Gate, 5.vi.1992 oil on canvas · 122 x 183 cm
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‘It’s all wide open, the land, the sea and the sky, and there’s absolutely no one around to tell you what to do or where to go. You’re on your own in this eternity of space. When you realise that, that’s when you’re likely to catch a glimpse of something quite profound. That’s what I’m trying to touch when I paint. I’m reaching out for the spiritual essence of the land. The appearance of the landscape thrills me but it also makes me acutely aware of my own insignificance. The landscape surrounds me, it rises before me, it’s aloof and it totally ignores my presence.’ James Morrison, 2005
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50 Dark Green Reeds, 25.v.1992 oil on board · 71 x 93.5 cm
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51 Stac Pollaidh, 11.vi.1993 oil on board · 96 x 148 cm
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The Arctic ‘Here, Morrison was confronted with nature in her purest aspect, untouched by human existence save for the occasional Inuit settlement, and he was astounded by the beauty and silent strangeness of the land’ Philip Braham·2020
James Morrison in the Arctic
I have made four journeys to the High Arctic to paint the landscape. As for so many other people, my first experience of that landscape totally enthralled me and I have been drawn back to it ever since. Dr Jean Balfour invited me to join her party to Lake Hazen on Ellesmere Island, in the Northern Territories of Canada in 1990. Since that visit, I have returned to the High Arctic on three further occasions. At Lake Hazen, on that first journey, I met Tom Buckley from Cape Cod and he has been my companion on all subsequent trips. In 1992, we were on Ellesmere Island again, at Otto Fiord in the northwest coast. In 1994, we lived in the Inuit settlements of Grise Fiord on South Ellesmere and Qaanaaq on northwest Greenland. In 1996, we lived in a deserted mining camp at Nyhavn on Greenland’s eastern coast. My intention was always to try to do in the far north what I have done at home, that is to paint in the landscape before my subject and to try and make sense of it. However, the whole experience has been infinitely richer than I could possibly have imagined and the attempt to convey something of that richness through painting has been a rewarding and absorbing task. James Morrison In August 1994, James Morrison visited Ellesmere Island in the Arctic Archipelago, choosing to stay at the northernmost civilian settlement in Canada, Grise Fiord in the Cordillera Mountain range. Though not seen in any of the images from the trip, the tiny population of Grise – fewer than 150 – were influential on the painter’s experience of the landscape, and on the character of the work he produced subsequently. He painted throughout his month-long stay and continued to create images of the Arctic after returning to his studio in September and working through the winter of 1994–5. In multiple paintings ice sits scattered in a minimalist, often almost monochrome landscape. There is often a muffled stillness in the paintings. That quiet and apparent solitude is, on occasion, in distinct contrast to the 94
James Morrison painting at Grise Fiord, 1994
circumstances of a given painting’s creation. One work looking out into Grise Fiord was carried out in the company of an elderly Inuit woman who sat outside in the snow with a rifle and shot seals as they surfaced, dispatching younger members of the community to bring back the bodies for dog food. None of this appears in the paintings, but neither is it merely anecdotal. There is an immediate disjunction between the pristine silence of the Arctic landscapes and their sometimes violent, bloody human context. It is not simply that the image ignores and even denies human agency, it wilfully imposes tranquillity on a reality marked by repeated bursts of turbulence and uproar. That contrast I think is central to these paintings. James Morrison found the High Arctic extraordinary. It was for him a defining moment as a landscape painter. But the experience was not confined to his existence as a painter. The visits to the region were extreme physical and emotional encounters for him. They were highly varied and often deeply contradictory, and all of that inconsistent whole had an impact on the paintings. The overt use of landscape as a vehicle for direct personal emotion is unusual in the artist’s work, and only occurs under extreme circumstances. John Morrison 95
52 Large Berg II, 7.xi.1994 oil on board, diptych · 102 x 245 cm
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53 Towards Inglefield Bay, 14.viii.1994 oil on board · 87 x 146 cm
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54 Ice on the Shore, Grise Fiord, 5.viii.1994 oil on board · 86.5 x 147 cm
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55 Ice at the Mouth of Resolute Bay, 29.vii.1990 oil on board · 43 x 76.5 cm
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56 Canadian Arctic, 5.viii.1990 oil on board · 51 x 75 cm
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57 Across the Fiord, 4.xi.1992 oil on board · 18 x 84.5 cm
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58 Iceberg Collage, 1994 oil and collage on board · 80 x 81 cm
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59 Inglefield Bay from Qaanaaq IV, 16.viii.1992 oil on board · 86.5 x 147.5 cm
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60 Clear and Cold, Otto Fiord II, 23.vii.1992 oil on board · 86.5 x 147.5 cm
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61 Arctic Diptych, c.1994 oil on board · 102 x 233 cm
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62 Fresh Snow on the Mountains, 10.viii.1996 oil on board · 87.5 x 150 cm
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63 Nyhavn, Southwards, 5.viii.1996 oil on board · 87.5 x 150 cm
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64 Cloud Rising, Nyhavn, 6.viii.1996 oil on board · 87.5 x 150 cm
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65 Trail Island, 31.vii.1996 oil on board · 47 x 94 cm
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66 Summer Isles, 4.vii.1995 oil on board · 81 x 145 cm
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67 West Coast, c.1995 oil on board · 78 x 104 cm
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68 Large Sky, c.1995 oil on board · 89.5 x 152 cm
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69 Montrose Basin, 25.v.1998 oil on board · 46 x 40.5 cm
70 Stinchar Valley, 2.vi.2000 oil on board · 82.5 x 150 cm
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71 Gentle River, 24.v.2000 oil on board · 75 x 90 cm
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72 Glenesk Wood, 6.i.1997 oil on board · 65 x 76 cm
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73 Beech Tree, 28.xi.2001 oil on board · 99.5 x 150 cm
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Later Years ‘The artist understands that still, quiet moment of contemplation; it may engender awe, as when he paints at Achiltibuie in Sutherland; or a sense that all is right and has ever been so, in the rich farming landscape of Angus.’ Guy Peploe · 2009
James Morrison, The Edge of Allegory, Festival Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, 2009 Guy Peploe
There is a moment when you pause on your walk in the country so that even the noise of your own progress cannot impinge on what you see. It is that moment that James Morrison consistently captures in his landscapes. There may be big weather rolling in, snow in the air, or brilliant blue sky, festooned high up with vapour trails. There may be a furrowed field drawing the eye to a hedgerow before a stand of trees, a windbreak for a comfortable arrangement of farm buildings. The artist understands that still, quiet moment of contemplation; it may engender awe, as when he paints at Achiltibuie in Sutherland; or a sense that all is right and has ever been so, in the rich farming landscape of Angus. His paintings are of real places and if pressed he might supply a map reference for where he set up his easel. But he will find his subjects where others might pass on. The conventions of landscape painting may be subsumed by the artist’s preferences: a strip of land, perhaps a far shore, may be crushed and over-run by a tumultuous sky which threatens to engulf the viewer. Not always for Morrison does the repoussoire tree lead the eye to middle-ground and far horizons. While he may not invent, he will bend the landscape to his will; it will be seen through the vehicle of his technique and be subject to the editing of his intellect. Morrison tends to date his paintings, for example 24.iv.2001. ‘You mean he does them in a day!’ His practice is to work outdoors, which on a three by five-foot format is quite a difficult logistical problem. He has developed his technique to be able to work quickly, using thinned oil paint and boards prepared with a non-absorbent ground. This enables him to capture the transitory nature of his subject and also suits him temperamentally: it is not a painstaking process but one containing great force. The sky is swept in, in broad gestures; grasses or a fence are scratched in with nervous energy. The 124
James Morrison painting on Skye, 2009
marks of the brush become the patterns of the earth, so strong is the artist’s power of suggestion. His home in Montrose and what consistently inspires him is the landscape of Angus and The Mearns, in a sense, his own back garden. As landscape lives, changes and regenerates so there in infinite variety and inspiration for the artist. 125
74 Quinag, 24.iv.2001 oil on board · 55 x 150 cm
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75 Achnahaird, 14.v.2003 oil on board · 101.5 x 153 cm
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76 Dark Sky Study, 2.vii.2004 oil on board · 46 x 52.5 cm
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77 Skyscape, 24.ii.2007 oil on board · 34 x 50 cm
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78 Stroma, 20.vi.2008 oil on board · 45 x 120.5 cm
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79 Pentland Firth, 7.vi.2008 oil on board · 86 x 152 cm
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80 Towards Dun, Calm, V.2008 oil on board · 88 x 152 cm
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81 Kyle of Tongue, 10.iii.2009 oil on board · 36 x 54 cm
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82 Winter Grass, 27.ii.2008 oil on board · 41 x 105 cm
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‘Towering skies and rolling land receding to distant horizons form the unmistakable essence of the work of James Morrison. Painted out of doors, the artist’s large boards are his starting points for an attempt to understand man’s place in the enormity of nature. Working in thinned oil, often battling against looming weather, Morrison has developed a particular individual technique requiring immense skill and sureness of vision; it allows him to record with speed, his white ground giving heightened luminosity, his medium allowing a wide range of brushmarks to express a variety of texture and form - the smooth calm of still water, rippling corn fields, the curving back of the birch, billowing softness of gathering clouds, the thick mat of heather and moor.’ Robin McClure New Paintings Exhibition, September 1997 Robin McClure, was Director of The Scottish Gallery 1988–2011
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83 Rain over Eigg, 27.v.2009 oil on board · 76 x 101 cm
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84 Western Space, 18.v.2009 oil on board · 101 x 152 cm
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85 Sky Study, Morar, 20.v.2009 oil on board · 101 x 152 cm
86 Summer, Skye, 6.v.2009 oil on board · 78 x 152 cm
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87 Blue Day, Skye, 10.v.2009 oil on board · 82 x 152 cm
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88 Westerly, 12.ix.2011 oil on board · 100 x 152 cm
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89 Approaching Rain, Ulva Ferry, 27.v.2011 oil on board · 75 x 101 cm
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90 Finally Summer, Mull, 3.vi.2011 oil on board · 97 x 152 cm
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91 From the Studio (The Loanie I), 9.xi.2010 oil on board · 35 x 108 cm
92 From the Studio (The Loanie), 8.iii.2012 oil on board · 30 x 86 cm
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93 Birch Tree, Montreathmont Forest, 12.x.2011 oil on board · 76 x 44 cm
94 From Pilatus II, 9.x.2012 oil on board · 34 x 105 cm
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‘Jim’s work isn’t simply the landscape he sees in front of him; he goes beyond representation and describes what it is to be human.’ Christina Jansen The Scottish Gallery
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95 Sound of Mull I, 14.v.2012 oil on board · 74 x 102 cm
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96 Sound of Mull II, 15.vi.2012 oil on board · 80 x 152 cm
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97 Meditation on Nether Dysart IV, 13.xi.2013 oil on board · 10 x 147 cm
98 Islands against a Distant Shore I, 2.ix.2013 oil on board · 19 x 146 cm
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99 Quinag in Cloud, 7.x.2014 oil on board · 30 x 62 cm
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100 Clouds Rolling In, 2018 oil on board · 49 x 82 cm
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‘When I am in the landscape, I am very aware that I’m not alone. There is something numinous. There is something transcendental, but it’s not something I would presume to know in a spiritual sense. I try to touch it, to allow it to come through in my paintings, I hope I succeed, but I wouldn’t want to make false claims for that dimension in my work. Some people see it, others do not.’ James Morrison · 2005
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101 Dark Landscape, 2018 oil on board · 51 x 63 cm
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Eye of the Storm
Eye of the Storm
An interview with Anthony Baxter
Poster for Eye of the Storm Previous page: The artist’s house at Craigview, Montrose
Eye of the Storm was broadcast on Easter Sunday, 9pm, 2021 while the UK was in its second national lockdown. As Anthony Baxter’s film was viewed on BBC2, thousands of viewers took to The Gallery website to find out more about the artist they were watching, sending enquiry after enquiry until eventually our site crashed from the weight of over 60,000 visitors simultaneously contacting us. The following week was an extraordinary collective outpouring of grief and love and we found ourselves listening to and giving counsel to many who had been moved by the portrayal of James Morrison. We have subsequently been contacted by viewers across the UK and worldwide. Eye of the Storm is a sensitive portrayal of an ageing artist losing his eyesight, giving an account of a life dedicated to the landscape and his environmental concerns. We are delighted to share an interview with Scottish BAFTA award winning director and cinematographer Anthony Baxter to give further insight into the making of Eye of the Storm and the relationship which developed between them. Christina Jansen The Scottish Gallery CJ When did James Morrison contact you and what inspired you to make a documentary film on James in particular? AB I first got in touch with James, after he wrote me a very moving letter after watching my 2012 feature documentary You’ve Been Trumped. Jim had been disturbed by the destruction of the landscape in Aberdeenshire that Donald Trump bulldozed to make way for his luxury golf resort. After speaking to James on the phone, he suggested meeting. But it was my uncle, Denis Rice – a lifelong friend of James – who facilitated that initial get together. I remember stepping out of the car with Denis at James’s home near Montrose, Craigview House, and looking out towards Scurdie Ness lighthouse. Denis told me that he had always seen the landscape differently, after viewing his first Morrison painting decades previously. And standing there looking up at the dramatic 173
sky that day, I knew exactly what he was referring to. Once inside, I had my first meeting with Jim and he talked about his years painting in Glasgow, his life in the landscape in Catterline, where the iconic Scottish painter Joan Eardley also lived. And then his move to Angus and adventures painting in the Arctic. At that time, Jim had been struggling with his eyesight and Denis was encouraging him to pick up his brushes once again. Jim explained he had been planning to get back to doing some painting in the studio, and I asked him if I could film him over a couple of days with a view to possibly making a documentary about his life and work. Jim said he thought it was a ‘marvellous idea’, and so it began. CJ What is your personal connection to Angus and Montrose? AB My mother, Maureen Rice, and her three siblings were all born in Montrose. My grandfather, William Rice, who himself was a keen amateur artist in later life, was the second vet in the town. We often went to Montrose on holiday as children during the 1970s and early 80s. After becoming a broadcast journalist, I had been living in Blackheath, southeast London for 10 years, when I made the decision to move to Scotland. And in 2005, I bought what would become my home just off Montrose High Street. At that time, I had many relations in the town – three first cousins all married with young children. And the internet was making it possible to work away from traditional media centres such as London. And so I established my production company here in the town, Montrose Pictures. CJ What did you set out to capture? AB When filming documentaries, I mainly work alone without a crew. And so it was in this case, as I wanted to intimately capture James as he returned to painting after a break enforced by his fading eyesight and a recent double hernia operation, and follow that process. I decided to limit the time I spent filming with James so as not to tire him out. And I would tend to sit first with him and his partner Ann Keddie over a coffee – and then do an hour or so of filming following that. Jim would often take a break from painting to tell a story. It might have been about his time at The Glasgow School of Art or his painting trips to the Arctic. All were enlightening. And as he talked, I began to think further about how I might illustrate the more dramatic events in his life, in the film. CJ How did your relationship with Jim develop? AB As time went on, I found I developed a trust with James, that enabled him to feel comfortable discussing various chapters of 174
his life. Jim enjoyed the opportunity to put on the record some of the experiences that he’d been through. I think all of us who have elderly relatives often feel it would be wonderful to have written down or recorded chapters and events that helped shape their lives. And James seemed to feel, this was a good opportunity to do just that. CJ Your choice of animation is fascinating – could you tell us more about that particular aspect of the film? Following page: stills from Eye of the Storm.
AB Originally the film was commissioned by BBC Scotland as an hour. But I have always felt cinematically, a feature length documentary allows more freedom. And so we applied for some further Screen Scotland support to enable us to bring to life James’s experiences in the Arctic and to also envisage his time at The Glasgow School of Art, painting in that city and his time painting in Paris as part of a longer film. Getting to the Arctic and filming there would have been impossible even with some additional resources. And so, I thought about the possibility of animation – and had seen one of Catriona Black’s previous works through my friend Mike Nicholson in Edinburgh – a very moving short animation about the sinking in 1919 of the HMY Iolaire as it struck rocks approaching Stornoway harbour on the Isle of Lewis. More than 200 men lost their lives as their overcrowded ship attempted to navigate a difficult route in exceptionally dire weather conditions. The sensitivity Catriona showed in crafting her beautifully made short film on this terrible disaster, made me think she would be the right choice for working on Eye of the Storm. When I approached her, she was very excited about the prospect of bringing to life James’s works, and his trips to paint in one of the world’s most challenging environments. As an art historian and former art critic herself, Catriona also came with a wealth of knowledge about painting techniques and in the early drafts of the Arctic sequences, I was convinced she was the right person for the job. CJ Can you tell us more about the choice of music? AB Karine Polwart is, of course, one of Scotland’s finest musicians. Her songs can be incredibly moving. I have worked with Karine before – she penned a beautiful song for the end credits of You’ve Been Trumped called Cover Your Eyes. And so, I asked Karine whether we could use several songs that had already been composed for Eye of the Storm. Fortunately for me, she agreed. I have also worked with Dr Who composer Dominic Glynn on several 175
of my previous films and Dominic was excited about the prospect of working on this project with me. CJ What was the most difficult aspect of filming? AB Perhaps the most difficult aspect of making the film was the Covid lockdown in 2020. By that stage, James was in a care home in Montrose and so I was unable to visit him further. It was tough to know he was just a stone’s throw away from where I live, but the pandemic meant it was impossible to visit him. I used this time to concentrate fully on the post production instead. CJ Eye of the Storm looks at Jim’s career in Scotland and his residencies in the Arctic – how did this impact on the film and inform your film making? AB Sometimes a story tells itself and this was certainly the case when following James as life and work. From his time at The Glasgow School of Art through to his adventures in the Arctic there is a light and shade to James’s life and work. James talks in the archival material in the film, of how when he was a teacher at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design in Dundee, that he didn’t want to ‘limit’ his students. And perhaps it’s this unique ability James had, to be so open, that made my job so much easier. CJ What other aspects of his career appealed to you? AB One of the most striking things about James Morrison’s work is the fact that he painted en plein air. Although a painting might have been finished in the studio, the hard graft would much more often than not (until ill health forced him to stay indoors) begin out in the landscape. And another aspect was that he didn’t include people in his paintings. He would sometimes be asked why there were no people in his landscapes. And in the film he talks about how people are an ‘irrelevance’ to what the landscape is doing and what the landscape is about. That really struck a chord with me. James would devote himself to capturing nature in all its glory – which often meant he would be lashed by the elements of an unforgiving north east coast! CJ Did you start viewing the landscape differently after spending time with Jim? AB Absolutely. I think it’s one of the striking things about James’s work and his lasting influence. And that seems to have struck a chord wherever we have shown the film. For example, we 178
interviewed members of the audience who went to see the film at the Shanghai International Film Festival – and they also remarked on this. So it would seem it doesn’t matter where you are in the world – watching the film and enjoying James’s extraordinary vision – enables you to then view the landscape differently. CJ What was accidental and deliberate in your film making? AB I suppose accidental are the off-the-cuff comments James made while I was speaking with him. But that enabled me to bring humour into the film and also added to the light and shade. CJ What is your abiding memory of working with and filming Jim? AB The main memory I have of working with and filming Jim is that he was just a lovely man. I had been told that Jim never courted the spotlight he would inevitably receive from his admirers at the opening of an exhibition for example. And in fact – those moments were his least favourite about being an artist. Jim was far happier out in the countryside painting. And I could see that in the way he interacted with me. He wasn’t one to court attention in any way. And I know he was very giving to young and aspiring artists who might come to him for advice and help. He certainly made time for people – and all those who were taught by him that I have had the good fortune to meet at Q&A cinema screenings – have spoken so highly of him. CJ Please tell us the difficulties you faced whilst the country was in lockdown and how did the airing of the film come about on BBC2 over the Easter weekend in 2021 AB As mentioned earlier, the Covid-19 lockdown impacted any possibility of further filming with James prior to his death. But fortunately, as a filmmaker, they did not restrict me from heading out to capture the stunning Angus landscape on film – and to try and celebrate it with my camera, in a similar way that Jim did with his paints. It was just the excuse I needed, in fact, to spend time in Catterline and to visit the stunning beaches and farmland near to Montrose to film at key locations where Jim had painted. As I understand it, the broadcast of the film on BBC2 came about as a result of the very strong response to the initial broadcast on BBC Scotland. And I was delighted when a primetime slot was found for its broadcast on Easter Sunday. There then followed a broadcast of the feature length version on BBC4. 179
Still from Eye of the Storm, featuring painting by James Morrison and illustration by Catriona Black.
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CJ Can you tell us what happened after the film aired? AB I was really taken aback by the response to the film. Viewers wanted to know more about Jim and his work. One artist on the Isle of Skye contacted me to say he was watching the film every day as motivation to get back into the studio and paint. And I understand it, The Scottish Gallery were inundated with people who had been moved by the film – putting your website under extreme strain from the volume of enquiries! Perhaps it was something about the moment the film was aired – touching a chord with the audience during the pandemic – a traumatic time for so many. CJ Congratulations on winning a Scottish BAFTA. What does that mean to you? AB It was something that I would love to have been able to share with James – I think he would have really enjoyed the success of the film and the impact it has made to date. Filmmaking is most certainly a team effort (despite what I said earlier about tending to film alone) and so it was humbling to receive the award with animator Catriona Black at the ceremony in Glasgow – and to reflect on all who helped to shape it. Among many others, these include writer/producer Richard Phinney, colourist Colin Brown, sound recordist John Cobban, and composer Dominic Glyn. All of us I think feel very proud of what we achieved. The Award will also give further momentum to the international distribution of the film, which has already been translated into Dutch, French and Chinese, and which will have its North American release later this year. We are finding that James’s timeless work has appeal around the world. CJ What is next on the horizon for Anthony Baxter? AB I am planning a feature documentary about another extraordinary Scottish artist who is no longer with us – the late great Joan Eardley. Joan has been so influential on Scottish painting and her life is one that certainly merits a major film – but it’s never been made. Although the centenary of her birth was marked by a wonderful exhibition at The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh, I think her work deserves to be recognised through cinema. This will be a project that involves the whole of Scotland – as we collect all archive materials that are known about and those that aren’t known about. And so, if you as a reader of this, or anybody you know has any photographs, filmed footage or perhaps a story connected with a Joan Eardley painting or paintings we’d love to hear from you. We will be setting up a special website very soon – so please watch this space!
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James Morrison RSA RSW D.Univ.
1932 Born in Glasgow 1950–54 Studied at The Glasgow School of Art 1958 Won Torrance Memorial Prize, RGI Founding Member of Glasgow Group 1962–63 Visiting Artist at Hospitalfield House, Arbroath 1965 Moved to Montrose Joined staff at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee 1968 Arts Council Travelling Scholarship to Greece 1969–71 Presenter BBC Arts Programme Scope 1976 onwards Painting in various regions of France – Provence, Isere, Lot and Paris 1979–87 Senior Lecturer at Duncan of Jordanstone 1987 Resigned post at Dundee to paint full-time
1990 / 1992 / 1994 / 1996 Painting in the Canadian High Arctic 1997 Painting in Botswana 1999 Painting in the Fens, Cambridgeshire 2003 Painting in Switzerland 2007 Painting in Collioure, France
SOLO EXHIBTIONS AT THE SCOTTISH GALLERY 1959 James Morrison, 21 November – 5 December 1964 James Morrison, 9–21 March 1967 James Morrison, 3–17 June 1975 James Morrison, 17–31 May 1978 James Morrison, Festival Exhibition 1981 Paintings of Scotland and the French Alps
Extended painting trip to Canada
1984 New Landscapes East and West Coasts, Festival Exhibition
1988 Writer and presenter of STV series The Scottish Picture Show
1987 Paintings of the East and West Coasts of Scotland
James Morrison in the studio, Melville Gardens, Montrose, 1971
1988 From East to West, New Paintings from Scotland and Canada, Festival Exhibition 1989 Per Mare Ad Mare – From Assynt To Angus 1990 James Morrison, 5–30 October 1991 Assynt to Angus 1991 Paintings of The Canadian Arctic, 7 – 29 May 1992 Winter in Paris 1992 James Morrison Recent Scottish Landscapes, 9–28 November 1994 James Morrison, 8 October – 2 November 1997 James Morrison, 7 April – 7 May 1999 James Morrison, East and West Coast Landscapes, Festival Exhibition 2000 Paintings of Mawana 2001 Art London with The Scottish Gallery 2002 James Morrison, 4–27 November 2005 James Morrison Paintings of the West Coast and Angus
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2007 James Morrison, 3 – 27 November
1989 The Macaulay Gallery, Stenton
1973 Galleria Acropoli, Venice
2009 The Edge of Allegory, Festival Exhibition
1990 The Glasgow Paintings, William Hardie Gallery, Glasgow
1976–85 Scottish Art, ESU Gallery, Edinburgh
2012 The View from Here
1991 / 1994 The Riverside Gallery, Stonehaven
2013 For Greer McKay – Move Him Into the Sun
1993 The Arlesford Gallery, Hampshire
1977 Seven Painters in Dundee, Scottish Arts Council Exhibition, The McManus: Dundee’s Art Gallery & Museum
2015 The North Wind 2017 Decades 2020 Angus to the Arctic
OTHER SOLO EXHIBITIONS 1956 / 1958 McClure Gallery, Glasgow 1962 The Reid Gallery London 1968 / 1970 Vaughan College, Leicester 1968 / 1969 Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh 1970 / 1977 Compass Gallery, Glasgow 1971 / 1972 Galleria Vaccarino, Florence 1973 Steiger Gallery, Moers, Germany 1974 Düsseldorf Kunstmesse 1979 / 1981 / 1985 / 1995 / 1997 / 2000 Thackeray Gallery, London 1986 The Fine Art Society, Glasgow 1987 Waddington and Shiell Gallery, Toronto 1988 Perth Festival Exhibition, Perth Museum and Art Gallery
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1995 Talbot Rice Gallery (Arctic works), University of Edinburgh 2013 Land and Landscape: The Painting of James Morrison, Fleming Collection, London 2015 Paintings of War, Montrose Museum, Montrose
GROUP EXHIBITIONS 1956 The Arts and the Cafe Royal, an exhibition of contemporary painting, Edinburgh 1964 +/-30, an exhibition of contemporary Scottish Art, Scottish Arts Council 1966 10 West of Scotland Painters, Arts Council Gallery, Belfast
1980 Scottish Painting in Holland Scottish Print Open 2, an exhibition of contemporary Scottish prints 1981 Art Fair, Basel Contemporary Scottish Painting, Arts Council Touring Exhibition Eleven Scottish Artists, Universities of Surrey and Nottingham Art in the City, MacLean Gallery, London 1981–82 Contemporary Art from Scotland, Touring Exhibition: Kendal, London, Sheffield, Cardiff, Middlesbrough 1982 Small is Beautiful, Dunkeld Gallery Glasgow Group Jubilee, McLellan Galleries, Glasgow
1967 First Edinburgh Open 100, Festival Exhibition, Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh
1983 Noise and Smoky Breath, Visual Images of Glasgow, 1900–1983, Third Eye Centre, Glasgow
1968 Three Centuries of Scottish Paintings, Canada
1984 Different Kinds of Good Weather, Arts Council Touring Exhibition
Scottish Contemporary Painting, Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh
A Festival of Scottish Drawing, Fine Arts Society, Glasgow
1969 Oireachtas Exhibition, Dublin Municipal Gallery
1985 Art for Africa, Contemporary Scottish Art, City Art Centre, Edinburgh
2 plus 3 Exhibition: Two Canadians and Three Scots (with Robert Downing, Jack Wise, Neil Dallas Brown and John Knox), Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh
The Parks in Glasgow, Compass Gallery, Glasgow
1985 Portraits on Paper, Scottish Arts Council
Below: Opening of the Young Glasgow Group Exhibition, 1957
1986 Contemporary Scottish Painting, Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh
1989 The Auld Alliance, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh
1988 A Festival of Gardens, Fine Arts Society, Glasgow
London Sea and Shore, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh
20th Anniversary, Thackeray Gallery, London
1990 Scottish Art, 1900–1990, The Scottish Gallery, London
Post 1945 and Contemporary Art, Ewan Mundy Fine Art, Glasgow
Paintings from the Clydesdale Bank Collection, Glasgow
1989 A View from the North East, ESU Gallery, Edinburgh
21 Years of Contemporary Art, Tramway Gallery, Glasgow
The Auld Alliance, Riverside Gallery, Stonehaven
A Patron of Art, The Royal Bank Collection, Edinburgh
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James Morrison painting in the Craigview studio, 1993
1991 Scottish Art in the 20th Century, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol 1992 150th Anniversary Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 1993 The Twelve Days of Christmas, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 1999 Mountain, Wolverhampton Art Gallery
2019 40 Years of Excellence, Frames Gallery, Perth Fully Awake, Edinburgh College of Art Among the Polar Ice, The McManus Art Gallery & Museum, Dundee
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museum
The McManus Art Gallery & Museum, Dunde The National Galleries of Scotland Perth Museum and Art Gallery Perth and Kinross Council Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh Scottish Fisheries Museum, Anstruther Strathclyde Regional Council Tayside House, Dundee
Members of the RSA, The Albemarle Gallery, London
ANGUSalive
The Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation
The Argyll Collection
Creative Scotland
Connections, RSA, Edinburgh
Art in Healthcare
Painter Members of the RSA, Albemarle Gallery, London
Cambridge Shire Hall
Universities: Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Heriot-Watt, Stirling and Strathclyde
2001 Aspects of Scottish Drawings, 1900–2001, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh
Clackmannanshire Council Museum and Heritage Service
2004 Art London with The Scottish Gallery 2008 Alliance Francaise, (with Douglas Davies), Glasgow Exhibition 2015 10th Anniversary Exhibition, Kinblethmont, Angus
The City of Edinburgh Council
DEFRA Dundee College Glasgow School of Art Glasgow Museums Government Art Collection, Art UK Grampian Television, Aberdeen HRH The Duke of Edinburgh High Life Highland
2018 From the Sublime to the Concrete, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh
Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow
Reflections, Kinblethmont, Angus
Lillie Art Gallery, Glasgow
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Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
Leicester Vaughan College
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12:1 Gallery
Detail of The 12:1 Gallery
In 1987 Bob Findlay built the 12:1 scale Gallery in Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art on the Perth Road in Dundee. The artwork which came to fill it is not an attempt to reflect acknowledged progressive Scottish painting at the time. There is no Steven Campbell, no Gwen Hardie or Alison Watt, no Stephen Conroy or Ken Currie. The gallery is very much a reflection of the life of the man it was made for, James Morrison. He commissioned it to give to his wife Dorothy and it is filled with the work of his contemporaries in the RSA, the RSW and the RGIFA; his friends in Scotland and beyond, his ex-students from Duncan of Jordanstone. In one sense it is a who’s who of James’s generation but there are works from many others in a wide-ranging and delightfully eclectic collection. The artworks are all originals. And what is remarkable is how often they are clearly identifiable as quintessential works by their creators. There is a delightful Alberto Morrocco of a girl seated at a table with a watermelon and a bowl of fruit. It looks as if it came straight out of one of the artist’s Edinburgh Festival exhibitions of the late 1980s/ early 1990s. Likewise, there is a luminous David McClure still life and a Robin Phillipson back view of a female nude, a witty David Donaldson sketch of an artist in a landscape, a Will Mclean fishing boat and a whole suite of Barbara Balmer’s including a portrait and two charming still lives. All of these are unmistakeable and all of them reflect the sheer fun of making things on this scale and for this company. There are a number of subjects personal to James. There is a portrait of him in an orange smock by the illustrator and Dundee colleague Ron Stenberg. Among many paintings by James in the gallery there is a portrait of the artist’s wife and a painter friend in Montrose painted a jewel-like landscape including Craigview, James’s home. A set of three tiny wood-engravings by the painter’s daughter-in-law Alyson MacNeill hang on the wall with more in the print rack that stands on the floor. 189
The 12:1 Gallery
The gallery was made just at the time James resigned from the art school. One of the projects he immediately undertook was to make a series of television programmes on contemporary Scottish artists. One of those featured was the printmaker Willie Rodger and there is a print by him. Former students are also represented with a sleeping female figure by Louise Johnstone and a monotone landscape by David Motion. Colleagues from Dundee are very well represented both from the painting school and further afield. There is work by the sculptor Gary Fisher, the jeweller Roger Morris, the printed textile designers Norma Starzakowna and Andy Taylor, the head of the college Myer Lacome and others. A work by Stan Clement-Smith, another Dundee colleague, arrived in its own wooden packing crate complete with stencilled label and ‘distress’ suffered in transit. Not all the works in the gallery date from its inception and James’s wife Dorothy continued to add to the collection and to stage new exhibitions over the next 15 years. After leaving the College James started painting in the Canadian High Arctic. There is a small arctic painting of his hanging. The opportunity to work in the arctic in part developed from working in Saskatoon with the celebrated Canadian landscape painter David Alexander. David later visited Scotland and painted with James in Angus and Assynt. There is a work by him in the collection, as there is by the Parisian architect and long-time friend Emile Deschler. The latter work was gifted to Dorothy by Emile when he stayed at Craigview during an exhibition he held in Scotland at James’s instigation. John Morrison
Acknowledgements
This publication would not have been possible without considerable help and guidance from the Morrison family, in particular John and Alyson Morrison and Judith and Mike Page. Many thanks to John Morrison for his essays and advice. We would like to thank Judith Page for allowing us access to the treasured 12:1 Gallery and other archive material. Finally, we would like to thank filmmaker Anthony Baxter for allowing us to interview him and for contributing stills from his film, Eye of the Storm.
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